Posted by mjspackaging mjspackaging on under General

What Is the Recommended Torque With A Plastic Cap

Product Appeal

Regardless what consumers purchase from stores, if the product is improperly packaged chances are they might not buy it. More importantly, if the product is ingestable chances increase that the item can become contaminated and cause someone irreparable harm, or worse! Because M. Jacob & Sons knows intuitively that packaging is the facade of a business, they go the extra mile to ensure that your product looks good to customers.

Professional Packaging
For well over a century, M. Jacob & Sons have been providing exemplary service to countless distributors of beverages, food, and pharmaceuticals, domestically and abroad. Whether it is glass, plastic, or any other enclosure, M. Jacob & Sons manufactures the highest quality packaging for the lowest possible cost in the industry. Below is just a few of the various options we offer:

  • Child resistant enclosures Multiple colors
  • Different shapes and sizes Eco-friendly products
  • Labeling and printing Mold making


Tight Restrictions
These days, there are more distributors of food and medicinal products than ever before. So when it comes to packaging, nothing is more vital for enclosures like bottles than plastic caps. Although there are other enclosure manufacturers, few attain the knowledge of what it takes to protect your food and pharmaceutical products than M. Jacob & Sons.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) impose strict guidelines on the packaging and bottling of all ingestable products. One of the most important factors with regard to glass and plastic enclosures, pertains to the torque specifications of caps. FDA mandates entail that manufacturers follow rules in accordance with:

  • Programmable Logic Controls (PLC) operations
  • timely distribution in order to avoid expiration dates
  • OSHA regulations and safety protocols

Cap Restrictions
The notion of bottle caps may not seem like a big deal, but truth is these little pieces of plastic are probably the most important feature of bottled and/or enclosed products. Fact is, cap enclosures not only prevent products such as beverages from becoming flat, they also deter germs from entering pharmaceutical bottles as well. Fortunately, M. Jacob & Sons has been helping its clients manufacture safe products for decades through the very practical, yet extremely complicated measurement of torque.

The Science of Torque
Torque is defined as the cross product of the lever-arm distance and force, which tends to produce rotation. Additional meanings of torque include the tendency of a force to rotate an object about an axis (pivot). It may appear menial, but the torque measurements for objects like nuts, bolts; and plastic caps for medicine bottles is relatively complex.

Specific measures
The primary factors that go into the design of caps are the fallback based peak torque, and the rotation based peak torque. The difference between these particular torque designs is cost, due to their respective threads. Regardless of this difference, the thread (rotation) limit of both designs should always be structured beyond their specifications, in order to avoid the worst case scenario of a cap’s exterior failing meaning that:

  • if the higher torque measurement is applied, then the thread break torque measurement will increase
  • where the threads break and/or strip due to the cap tightening cycle
  • the torque should equate to a cap’s outside diameter in mm divided by two
  • the release torque and/or applied torque quotient depends on cap specifications
  • the cap range should be approximately 0.6 to 0.9 (lower for plastic and higher for glass)

Bottling Up The Competition
Ultimately, the packaging you choose for your food, medicine, and other products can make or break your business. That is why it is of the utmost importance to align your organization with the professionals to help you keep your products fresh from the factory to the store shelves. So why not choose the expertise of M. Jacob & Sons, since they have been the best in the business for more than 100 years? Do not second guess yourself, contact one of M.Jacob & Sons experienced representatives at 1-800-915-2262.