12  Preform Design for Single- and

Two-Stage Processing

Chapter Outline
12.1 Two-Stage Process Injection Molding  301
12.2 Single-Stage Process Injection Molding  303
12.3 Goals and Conditions  303
12.4 The Mechanics of Preform Design  304
12.5 Putting it all Together  307

Preforms for these two processes are quite different and one made for one
process will not work in the other. The reason for this becomes clear when
we look at what is actually happening to the preform just prior to stretch
blow molding (Fig. 12.1).

12.1  Two-Stage Process Injection Molding

In order to guarantee optimal flow of the molten polyethylene terephthalate
(PET) into the injection cavities designers use ratios of gate wall thickness to
body wall thickness. Ideally, one would want to keep the gate wall thickness
as low as possible as this part of the preform does generally not participate to
a large degree in the stretching process and stays as an often wasteful, thick
disk in the center of the bottle. (In carbonated soft drinks (CSD) bottles, how-
ever, a thick center disk is required as a thinner, amorphous center would not
be able to withstand the considerable pressure.) However, to make sure that
PET can enter the cavity without too much shear stress, a ratio of 72–80% is
used in most cases. That means that a preform with a 3-mm body wall thick-
ness will have a gate wall thickness between 2.16 and 2.34 mm.
The exception to the rule is preforms with a body wall thickness of less
than 2.5 mm. These have become quite popular with lightweight water
bottles as a lower preform wall thickness reduces cooling requirements
and speeds up cycle times. There is a minimum gate wall thickness of
about 1.8–2 mm and gate to body wall thickness ratios of up to 100% may
become necessary for these preforms.
Preforms are all at the same temperature when they are fed into the blow
molding machine. In the heating section, they spin on mandrels while in-
frared heaters bring them to blowing temperature. This virtually guarantees

Stretch Blow Molding. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-46177-1.00012-3

Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 301
302 Stretch Blow Molding

Figure 12.1  Choosing or designing the right preform for a bottle is a crucial step
for both functional and economical reasons. Photo courtesy of KHS Corpoplast.

that all preforms are at the same temperature circumferentially. One limita-
tion of the process is that in order to protect the neck finish the first lamp
in the oven section has to have a certain distance from the neck finish that
is protected by a sheet metal shield. Therefore, the preform section un-
derneath the neck support ring (NSR) cannot be heated to the degree that
processors would want to. The material in this section forms the shoulder
of the bottle where less material is needed and it is beneficial for overall
weight savings to pull material out of this area. Preform designs for two
stage take this into account by bringing the thinner neck section down to a
point where material is then needed to form the wider body of the bottle.
When reheating preforms in a good blow molding machine, knowl-
edgeable processors can actually bring the inside temperature of the pre-
form to a higher level than the outside, achieving the optimal temperature
profile through the wall. They do this by using high lamp settings and
enough venting air in the oven to keep the oven temperature below blow-
ing temperature. A longer equilibration time after heating is also helpful
for this purpose. This is beneficial because the inner surface material of the
preform has to stretch further than the outer one. By changing lamp heater
outputs, oven fan cooling, and preform throughput operators can precisely
adjust the temperature to an optimal level. For these reasons high blow up
ratios up to 12 are possible in two stage resulting in very good properties
such as carbonation retention for CSD bottles.
12:  Preform Design for Single- and Two-Stage Processing 303

12.2  Single-Stage Process Injection Molding

In this process preforms and bottles are manufactured in the same ma-
chine. After injection molding, the preforms stay in the neck inserts and
are shuttled to a conditioning station in some machines or directly blown
in other machines. At this point in time the preform has only partially
cooled down from the melting temperature of around 260°C (500°F). The
cooling of the preform comes from the inside (injection core) and outside
(injection cavity) during injection, resulting in the center of the preform
wall staying warmest. This residual heat makes preforms from the single-
stage process on average warmer than their two-stage counterparts.
A very beneficial feature of this process is the fact that the inner pre-
form wall stays warmer than the outer one. This is due to the smaller core
cooling area and lower core cooling water flow as explained in more detail
in Chapter 10, Section 10.6. This feature allows the process a good degree
of flexibility when it comes to oblong bottles.
Since the last part of the preform to receive hot material is toward the
gate area so this part of the preform is always warmer than the area under-
neath the neck. Processors are therefore limited in how they can process
these preforms. Designers compensate for this in two ways. First they use
a lower gate to body wall thickness ratio, usually between 58% and 66%.
This reduces wall thickness in the gate area allowing faster cooling. They
also tend to have the greatest body wall thickness underneath the neck if
possible. Quite contrary to intuition, a thicker wall in the PET preform in
this process leads to a thinner wall in the corresponding bottle wall thick-
ness. This is true because a thicker wall retains more heat and will then
subsequently stretch so much more that a thinner bottle wall is achieved.
But nonetheless, when the blow molding process is the slave of the injec-
tion process, process capabilities diminish.

12.3  Goals and Conditions

There are several goals every designer has at the outset of designing a
preform. These are as follows:

• Creating the strongest possible bottle at the lowest weight, be it

with respect to parameters such as top load or carbonation re-
tention or to give consumers the feel of a well-made container.
• Even wall distribution in the sidewalls.
• Strong bottom corners that cannot easily be pushed in.
• Least amount of material in the base to still make a functional
container.
• High injection and blow machine output.
304 Stretch Blow Molding

Some of these goals may come in conflict with each other and often
preform designs end up as a compromise between different requirements.
In fact, designers are given certain requirements at the outset and they have
to work within them. These are as follows:

• bottle design including neck finish;

• weight;
• application such as water, CSD, personal care, etc.; and
• process (single or two stage).

12.4  The Mechanics of Preform Design

Preform design has long been considered somewhat of a black art and
even today most designers will consult their library of past designs first
when they get a new project rather than going through some scientific
evaluation. While it is true that preform designs often do not work out
as anticipated there are a number of design considerations that will put
any new design on a solid footing. Elements such as the state of the blow
machine, the skill of the processor, and plant conditions all have an effect
how a particular preform works out and are out of control of the designer.
In any case, new designs need to be evaluated in unit-cavity tools before an
expensive preform tool can be ordered.
All designs start with a neck finish as it will determine the overall shape
of the preform. The inside and outside diameter of the neck are the start-
ing point from where the designer has to choose from four basic shapes
(Fig. 12.2).
The application will determine what stretch ratios to employ. As ex-
plained in Chapter 7, Section 7.2 the overall or planar stretch ratio (PSR)
is the product of internal hoop and axial stretch ratio. Table 12.1 outlines
typical ratios for different applications.
Very lightweight water bottles with small, 26-mm necks have forced
developers to venture into ratios as high as 12.5 and these are employed
today in some cases. The table values are more conservative figures that
designers should stick to as safer starting points. It should also be noted
that Table 12.1 reflects ratios employed most in the two-stage process. In
single stage, where processors have less control over the preform heat pro-
file, ratios seldom exceed 8, and are often well below that. That is not a
problem in most cases as bottles produced in this process have thicker
walls than their two-stage counterparts and the degree of orientation re-
quired is mostly not an issue. Therefore, the following discussion is rel-
evant mostly for the two-stage process.
12:  Preform Design for Single- and Two-Stage Processing 305

Figure 12.2  Preform shapes. These basic shapes are available for the designer.

Table 12.1 Typical Ratios for Different Applications

Planar Stretch Ratio Application

11–12 CSD, oval, rectangular

10–11 CSD, flat drinks
9–10 Water, edible oil
8–9 Hot fill
8 Heavy bottles

The first rule to spell out here is that ratios in the axial and hoop direc-
tion should be at least a factor of 2, which means 4 for the hoop direction
as this is a diameter comparison. This is to ensure a certain degree of ori-
entation in both directions and is the reason that 8 is the lowest planar ratio
listed. When higher ratios are required it is beneficial to expand both hoop
and axial ratio by the same multiplier but this is not as critical.
After choosing a certain PSR the designer would start in determining
the axial stretch ratio. Since the hoop stretch ratio is double that of the
axial stretch ratio in the ideal scenario, the simple formula: PSR = X × 2X
is solved as X = square root of (PSR/2). For example, a planar ratio of 10
would let the designer start with an axial ratio of square root of 5 or 2.3 and
306 Stretch Blow Molding

that would determine the length of the preform. He then would determine
the best preform shape that will result in an internal stretch ratio of 4.6. All
modern 3D computer-aided design programs let users calculate the weight
of a created object and designers use this feature to determine the wall
thickness of the preform once the basic shape has been established.
Bringing stretch ratios in-line with the application is not the only task
of the designer. The next step is to determine where the thin neck parts
should transform into the thicker body parts of the preform and how thick
to make the preform base. For the first task it is important to correlate the
bottle shape to preform wall thickness. All bottles have a shoulder sloped
at different angles. In the shoulder region less material is needed to create
a certain wall thickness and the transition from neck to body diameter in
the bottle should be reflected in the preform. To better understand these
relationships, here is an example.
The transition area from thin to thick on the preform is the distance from
A to B. The transition area on the bottle from the neck to the body is the dis-
tance from A to C. The transition ratio for the preform is (A to B) divided by
(A to D) while that of the bottle is (A to C) divided by (A to E). These two
relationships should be very similar if not identical. In this example it is:

Preform: 14.11/89.16 = 15.8%
Bottle: 39/196.74 = 19.8%

If the transition ratio in the preform is smaller than in the bottle (as is the
case in the example) a line can appear in the bottle where the thicker pre-
form wall section ended up. If the difference is small (<5%) the process
can usually be adjusted to avoid this issue.
If the transition ratio in the perform is larger than in the bottle, the bottle
shoulder becomes weak and poor top load results (Fig. 12.3).
Also important in this regard is determining the distance underneath
the bottom of the transfer ring that must be straight on the outside to allow
grippers or other handling devices access. In most cases this distance will
be 4–5 mm.
While preform walls are mostly kept straight both inside and outside
must be slightly tapered to allow demolding. Designers use 20–40 degree-
min for this purpose. In single stage, it can be beneficial to have a larger
taper that allows more material in the area underneath the neck to facilitate
a thinner bottle shoulder. Larger tapers are also employed in preforms for
wide-mouth bottles. This is because if straight preforms were designed for
necks of 63, 89, or 120 mm too much material would end up in the bot-
tom of the bottle. Instead, these preforms are tapered to diameters that will
transform into bottle bases with suitable wall thickness (Fig. 12.4).
12:  Preform Design for Single- and Two-Stage Processing 307

Figure 12.3  Bottle and preform.

12.5  Putting it all Together

Here is an example. I will design a preform for the bottle depicted in
Fig. 12.5. The 28-mm plastic cap only neck finish weighs 5.1 g and will
not be drawn. The weight will just be added at the end. Here are the design
parameters:

Volume: 1 L
PSR: 10.5–11.5 for maximum oxygen protection
Weight: 30 g
Application: Flat, flavored water
308 Stretch Blow Molding

Figure 12.4 To avoid thick bottle bases wide-mouth preforms are designed with
large tapers.

Figure 12.5  Water bottle.

12:  Preform Design for Single- and Two-Stage Processing 309

Figure 12.6  PCO 1810 neck.

The length to shoulder ratio is 19.14/201.10 = 9.5%. With a target PSR

of 11, the axial stretch ratio will be the square root of 5.5 or 2.35 and the
internal hoop stretch ratio 4.7. These are just target values that may change
in the course of the design but they are a good starting point.
Preform design starts with the neck dimensions as specified in
Fig. 12.6.
The outside dimension of the preform will be 26.19 mm as shown, the
inside dimension 21.59 mm (the inside taper reduces it from 21.74 mm as
shown). At this point, it is not obvious which of the design options will
be used. Starting with a straight outside wall would be the first option to
consider. Here are some of the initial calculations:
310 Stretch Blow Molding

Axial stretch ratio: 201.10/2.35 mm = 85.57 mm

Transition length: 85.57 mm × 9.5% = 8.12 mm
Inside diameter of the preform: 86/4.7 mm = 18.3 mm
Resulting wall thickness: (26.19/18.3 mm)/2 = 3.95 mm
Gate wall thickness: 3 mm
Gate to body wall thickness ratio: 3/3.6 mm = 83.3%

A wall of 3.95 mm will command sizable cycle time on the injection

machine. Most designers try to stay within a 3.5–3.7 mm band for these
types of bottles. There are now three choices if the target wall thickness
should be 3.6 mm:

• increase the preform inner diameter (ID) resulting in a loss

of hoop stretch ratio;
• increase the preform length resulting in a loss of axial stretch
ratio; and
• reduce the preform outer diameter (OD) to 25.5 which would
result in dual side taper design.

In this example, the third option will be chosen.

At this point it is not known what the preform weight will be and it can
be fruitful to calculate it with the help of a spreadsheet (Fig. 12.7).

Figure 12.7  A spreadsheet may prove helpful to calculate weight before starting to
draw the preform.
12:  Preform Design for Single- and Two-Stage Processing 311

Figure 12.8  Preform for 1 L bottle, step 1. Most calculated values have been incor-
porated in this first step.

This calculation shows a weight very close to the target of 30 g, close
enough indeed to start drawing. A first sketch may look like the one given
in Fig. 12.8.
Notice that both body lines are in an angle of 20 degree-min. It is
important to draw the tapers right away as they are difficult to change
later.
It is now easy to connect the two lines coming from the neck with the
two lines forming the body and create the transition zone. To create the
bottom hemispheres and connect them to the body lines is a little more
difficult because of the taper. Trigonometry reveals that the two body lines
shift about 0.344 mm to the inside where they will meet the hemispherical
shapes. This will result in radii of 12.4 and 8.8 mm. Since the gate wall
thickness will be 3 mm it is now possible to draw the center lines of those
radii. The 12.4 line starts at the bottom of the preform and the 8.8 line
3 mm above it (Fig. 12.9).
312 Stretch Blow Molding

Figure 12.9  Preform for 1 L bottle, step 2. The transition area has been drawn as
well as the center lines for the bottom radii.

When connecting the two radii with the bottom lines it is important that
the lines perfectly match (Fig. 12.10).
The calculated weight is short of the neck weight of 5.1 g, which brings
the total to 31.32 g, very close to the calculations in the spread sheet
(Fig. 12.11). To bring the preform to the target weight of 30 g, here is a
choice of

• reducing the preform length; result will be an increase in

axial stretch ratio;
12:  Preform Design for Single- and Two-Stage Processing 313

Figure 12.10  The completed preform.

• increasing the preform ID, result will be a decrease in hoop

stretch ratio; and
• decreasing the external diameter.

Since the draw ratio is already at the upper design limit of 11.5 it seems
best to increase the preform ID. Changing the numbers on the spreadsheet
makes this an easy task (Fig. 12.12).
Fig. 12.13 shows the finished preform drawing with the changed ID and
radii in the connection zones.
The final preform will be easier to injection mold and still have excel-
lent barrier properties with a high draw ratio of 11.2. This design can now
314 Stretch Blow Molding

Figure 12.11  The software reveals a weight of 26.22 g at the PET density.

Figure 12.12 A small change in the body ID brings the preform to the correct
weight.
12:  Preform Design for Single- and Two-Stage Processing 315

Figure 12.13  Preform for 1 L bottle step corrected.

be matched with the correct neck and a unit cavity developed. This ad-
ditional development step is not only necessary to verify the weight and
shape of the preform but also to make sure it can be blown into a suit-
able bottle. In the end, it is the bottle properties that count and all parties
involved would do well to test any preform design before purchasing an
expensive injection tool.