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    Translucent plastic bottles with ribbed screw caps, lit in blue against a dark background

    Product Design

    Redesign of Plastic Bottle Closure to Eliminate Failure

    By Dr. Duane Priddy Sr. · Published December 19, 2018

    Pictured: Translucent plastic bottles with ribbed screw caps, lit in blue against a dark background

    Dr. Duane Priddy Sr. (Cofounder & CEO), Plastic Expert Group

    The client manufactures plastic bottles for chemical solutions. At the end of the threads is a tab that produces a clicking sound when the screw cap was fully seated. Occasionally a tab would break off the bottle. Our experts evaluated the current design and performed computer modeling using finite element analysis (FEA) to redesign the bottle and eliminate the failures.

    Two macro photographs of the bottle neck, the left showing the small locating tab in place and the right showing the void where it has broken away

    Figure 1. Photographs of the bottle with the tab (left) and with tab missing after breakage (right).

    Translucent plastic bottles with ribbed screw caps, lit in blue against a dark background
    Pictured: Translucent plastic bottles with ribbed screw caps, lit in blue against a dark background

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