Alcoa Closure System
Bottle Cap Redesign

Advanced Simulation and Consulting Services

Alcoa Closure Systems International, the major manufacturer of plastic bottle caps in the United States, was facing a persistent problem. Extreme conditions occasionally encountered during shipping and handling were causing higher-than-normal carbonation loss in specific plastic soft drink bottles. The solution to this problem could be worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in potential liability to Alcoa and its valued bottling customers.

Alcoa chose the Abaqus FEA product suite from SIMULIA to help redesign the closure seal. Together with Alcoa engineers, SIMULIA engineers quantified the effects of several possible design changes to improve the performance of the closure system.

"The final test data are not in yet, but initial results are very promising. SIMULIA engineers’ expertise saved months of expensive, time consuming empirical testing. Abaqus FEA computer-aided design process reduced our typical redesign cycle by 50 percent or more! That's money in the bank and allows reallocation of critical human resources to other strategic initiatives."
-Larry Smeyak, Alcoa