Development of Easy-To-Open Food Bottle

Abstract

Due to the decline of domestic shipment of glass bottles in recent years, bottle manufacturers are obliged to operate in difficult situations. This is mainly caused by the widespread use of light-weight and unbreakable plastic bottles, such as PET bottles. However, as glass bottles are superior to plastic bottles in heat resistance and hygiene, demands for glass bottle containers will continue to exist in the future. This project has developed bottles that are easy to open even for women and the elderly with weak muscles by studying the "difficulty to open", which is a disadvantage of food bottles.
The development steps were as follows. First, food bottles were collected from the market to observe and subjectively evaluate the motion of opening the bottles to determine the characteristics of easy-to-open bottles. The motion observation also revealed that "easiness to hold" has much to do with "easiness to open". Next, based on the findings, six prototypes were made to be tested by monitors. In addition to subjective evaluation, easiness to apply force in opening was measured by electromyography. As a result, it was found that the bottle with a parallelogram cross section was the easiest. Finally, a questionnaire was conducted on the attractiveness of such bottle as a product and it was confirmed that the bottle earned a higher rating than current products.