Cardboard beverage bottle carrier unfolding

Customised engineering example

A manufacturer of fully-enclosed cartons wanted to quality test the fold-out force for a variety of their designs, used mainly to package drinks bottles and cans. Since the cartons are supplied flat, the carton faces needed to be pulled apart evenly.

Mecmesin designed a base plate with locating flanges for each carton-design to be inserted when tested. The underside of the flattened pack was held in place by vacuum pumped suction, and the upper side was pulled up by a cluster of suction cups. 

Test samples could be fitted quickly and the vacuum engaged to apply suction on both surfaces. In this way, the folding strength of the fully-enclosed cartons could be accurately measured as the two surfaces were pulled apart.