Patent ID: 6918285

Claim:
An apparatus for testing flexible containers, said apparatus comprising: a pair of spaced apart continuous loop belts in line with a production line, each of said continuous loop belts having at least one flexible section for directly contacting and gradually applying and removing a predetermined compression over a predetermined time to a plurality of containers as they travel by an inspection station arranged along said continuous loop belts; at least one sensor in contact with at least one of said belts on a side opposite to that of said belt in direct contact with a container while a container is in said inspection station, said sensor being arranged to sense the force transferred from a container to said sensor through said belt so that said sensor does not directly contact containers and damage them, said sensor generating a signal that varies in accordance with the internal pressure of said containers as they pass by said sensor; and means for receiving said signals from said sensor and analyzing them to determine the acceptability of the internal pressure of the containers.