Medical package testers are revealing a lot more about their subjects these days. How? Using high-frequency ultrasound, for one. With it, engineers can locate defects as small as 10 µm in packages. Attendees of HealthPack 2003 heard this news from Jack Richtsmeier, business development manager of Sonoscan Inc. The firm’s technology, Acoustic Micro Imaging (AMI), can locate voids, cracks, delaminations, and disbonds in many types of medical and pharmaceutical packaging. Cardinal Health, for instance, has used it to test foil laminate pouches.
But is such test sensitivity really necessary? This question kept popping up throughout the two-day conference, held in Scottsdale, AZ. The event also featured the second meeting of IoPP’s recently recharged Medical Device Packaging Technical Committee.