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FLAT, heatset web offset printing

Fluting Laboratory Tester

  • Simulate HeatSet Web offset printing
  • Investigate phenomena encountered in HeatSet Web Offset
  • Study phenomena such as fluting, offset roughning, blistering, and ink gloss gain
  • Study on A4 format to simulate web printing

The little story of the pilot

HeatSet Web Offset printing techniques involving a dryer cause a major defect that does not occur in rotogravure printing with the same application using magazine paper. This defect is “fluting”, a type of paper surface deformation that takes the form of waves about a centimetre across and is detrimental to print quality. In the context of a project to study and solve this problem, paper makers, ink manufacturers, machinery manufacturers and printers - key players in this field - joined forces with the CTP and commissioned it to develop a device for studying fluting at a small scale.
This pilot now provides a means of avoiding long and costly tests on an HeatSet Web Offset, using A4 formats in industrial conditions.

Characteristics

The device prints both sides of an A4 sheet and dries it in industrial conditions.
It uses a specific image analysis module to characterise the fluting phenomenon.

  • Format: A4
  • Printing speed: 1 ms-1, complying with industrial time intervals between printing and drying (same synergies and kinetics).
  • Printing with industrial ink quantities
  • Use of industrial ink with a special printing disk.

Possible studies

  • Comparison of inks or papers to examine fluting with a dryer.
  • Study of offset roughing on coated papers.
  • Study of printing conditions such as ink quantity, oven power and drying kinetics on the full range of issues relating to offset printing with a dryer.
  • Study of printing gloss characteristics.
  • Comparison of coated papers in terms of blistering.

Characterisation of fluting

A built-in system for evaluating the intensity of fluting waves has been developed specifically for this equipment.
It consists of a red laser beam that indicates the paper deformation and records an image.
The characterisation obtained with this system correlates entirely with the intensity of fluting obtained through an industrial-scale evaluation.

02-Flat

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