Determining the factors that affect the quality of test prints at flexographic printing

Abstract

There is a wide range of printing inks for flexography, which affects the quality of a printed image on the print [4].Flexography is traditionally considered a comparatively simple printing technology. However, as the requirements for the flexographic product quality increase, there emerge certain problems that need to be solved and explored. That is why defining the effect exerted by some factors on the technological process of printing plates manufacturing, as well as and printing, can resolve the issues related to ensuring the quality of prints made by flexographic printing. Often, there are problems related to the correct reproduction of elements in the image with different complexity of the pattern, which affects the stability of the printing process, as well as obtaining high-quality prints. The use of various materials for printing flexographic images requires the study into their surface structure before and after the application of the ink and is of paramount importance for obtaining prints with the appropriate optical and operational characteristics.

Determining the Print Quality Due to Deformation of the Halftone Dots in Flexography

“…The ink film thickness is more homogeneous when a larger number of cells support one dot (situation 1). When the dot is supported by the cell wall of a single anilox cell, it is wetted by a maximum amount of ink (situation 2), and when the dot is smaller than the cell, it sinks into the cell and is covered with too much ink (situation 3), which is the so-called "dot dipping" effect [19]. There are several options for solving the problem of the "dot dipping" effect by manipulation with the prepress and printing settings:…”

Effects on print quality of varying acrylic binder types in water‐based flexographic ink formulations

“…However, since currently the market of printing production is tending towards the intensive use of flexographic printing, attributed to the rapid development pace of the packaging industry, more problems and challenges arise that need to be addressed, explored, and solved. 5 Flexography is used nearly in all areas of packaging printing, such as labels, food packaging, 6 disposable paper goods, corrugated containers, folding cartons, paper sacks, plastic bags, milk and beverage containers, disposable cups and containers, labels, envelopes, newspaper, and packaging found in every grocery store. It has the advantage of achieving high quality print results on a whole range of printing substrates, such as polypropylene plastic films 7 and various other plastic films, such as polyethylene, and many complex sandwiched film structures, 8 aluminium foil, 9 corrugated cardboard, and on "orodispersible" films in the pharmaceutical industry.…”

Influence of Printing Substrate on Quality of Line and Text Reproduction in Flexography

“…The common way of evaluating the quality of graphic reproduction consists of an objective evaluation of the color and tone in the printed image using the spectrometric and densitometric measurement methods. Havenko et al analyzed the influence of surface roughness of cardboard as a printing medium on printing properties of environmentally friendly inks, and in their research they presented the effect of the surface layer of cardboard on the microgeometry of prints formed by cyan, yellow, black and magenta inks [18]. Plazonić et al investigated colorimetric changes of the water-based flexographic ink printed on three types of hemp-based printing substrates subjected to artificial ageing [19], and it was proven that the most stable prints under the influence of light were made with black ink.…”