Large Size Hot Fill Bottles

Target

The main target was to create an hot fillable bottle “family”, with several advantages with respect to
existing solutions: lightweight, non standard panel design, no shrinkable label use, etc.
A further target was to develop hot fillable large volume bottles, up to 2 liters. Different design proposals
were prepared for different aesthetic results. The overall target was to show SIPA capabilities on
working in this sector due to its wide experience on hot fill complete lines.
Due to the fact that vacuum occurs after cooling, the bottles must have a special design in order to
absorb this vacuum. When developing large size formats even more attention was paid to vacuum
absorbtion as higher volume means higher shrinkage and solutions to avoid bottle deformation have
been studied.

Development & challenges

For all sensitive products (applications such as flat juices, tea, isotonic or vitamin-water), special attention
on filling is mandatory. Due to high costs and heavy maintenance on aseptic lines, hot filling is a
good solution. In the development of this project, several details were considered: lightweighting of
existing solution, new shape without conventional panel-design, suitable base-design to ensure stability,
straight label area, easiness in handling, customizable design to create a brand identity, etc. The
development of a family (same shape scaled to different sizes) meant also a complete development for
every single bottle, checking the functionality of panel shape in the different sizes. Large sizes are more
challenging: the vacuum compensation (i.e. depression inside the bottle after cooling) is stronger: for
example, going from a filling temperature T of 90°C to room temperature, for a 500 ml bottle means
a volume shrinkage of about -15ml, instead for a 2000ml bottle this is –50/70ml. Further challenges
were: possibility to use a roll-feed label instead of shrinkable label, high productivity on SFR blowing
machines, higher mechanical performance, possibility to fill off-line.

Results & Packaging Features

The new bottle designs were made keeping the same principle of panel able to compensate vacuum
after hot-filling and cooling without collapsing of the containers, so to ensure stability.
For all bottles, the neck finish was 33mm diameter with a weight of 3.65g. Filling temperature is 90±2°C.

Different shape features

SIPA designed and developed different hot fillable large size bottles. SIPA has a huge expertise on
every detail of the project, from preform design specific for the customized bottle to different shape
design as per customer’s request.