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Fall Training Seminars
Fall International Training

Lake Ammersee, Germany is the site for our two open enrollment Training Seminars coming up in September: 

  • Fracture 3: Master Class Sep. 3-6
  • Fracture 1: Testing & Breakage Diagnosis Sep. 9-11

 

Enjoy learning at this beautiful location. See our full Fall International Training Schedule Including Krakow, Butler, PA and Bangkok. 

AGR Training in Tanzania
Training in Tanzania

Last week (w/o Jun 10) Dr. Brandon Aldinger and Director of Research, Bill Slusser, traveled to East Africa to conduct our “Fracture 1: Testing and Breakage Analysis” training seminar at Kioo Limited, which is located in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania. 

Kioo Limited is the largest glass plant in East Africa and the only glass container manufacturer in Tanzania. Kioo supplies multiple beverage, beer and liquor customers along with some food jars. They currently run two furnaces of flint glass, green glass and amber glass. 

Interestingly, Kioo was established in 1963, the exact same year that our founder Dr. Frank Preston, transitioned his Preston Labs into American Glass Research.

Pharm e-Seminar
Free Pharm e-Seminar

How should pharmaceutical glass suppliers and drug manufacturers evaluate new technologies for vials and syringes? Learn more in our free upcoming e-Seminar. AGR’s 

Dr. Brandon Aldinger will be conducting a free 30-minute e-Seminar May 30 at 9 AM EDT, on “Applying Glass Fractography to the Evaluation of Novel Glass Parenteral Technologies”.

From flaw identification to breaking stress measurement, fracture analysis can yield insights into technology development, line handling, and flaw severity for the next generation of pharma packaging. If you need help with your pharmaceutical glass container breakage, please join in our free e-seminar with Dr. Aldinger. Learn more in our just released Q2 e-News Blast and how to join the livestream.

Warehouse Breakage
Warehouse Breakage Case Study Released

Read our just released case study on the Failure of Filled Bottles during Warehouse Storage…After being filled with a carbonated liquid, a number of 12 fluid ounce capacity non-refillable beverage containers were found broken in the warehouse within two days of filling. Open our Q2 e-Newsletter for the full case study HERE

Fried Egg Glass Contaminant
Award winning SEM Picture

Congratulations go out to Dr. Brandon Aldinger and Brad Salitrik for this award winning image taken on our JEOL IT-300LV Scanning Electron Microscope.  The image “Sunny-Side Up Egg” was selected as the winner for the month of January 2024 in the JEOL USA Image Contest.  With some color added for interest, this photomicrograph of an embedded material particle closely resembles a classic breakfast delight. The particle was inadvertently deposited inside a glass food jar during formation while the glass was still red-hot. The yellow 'yolk' in the image corresponds to an area enriched in tin, while the 'whites' correspond to areas that were bubbled and cracked due to reactions with the surrounding glass. Embedded particles on the interior of a glass container lower its strength; therefore, determining the composition of particles is the first step in eliminating the source of the contaminants.

Broken Coffee Carafe Case Study
Broken Coffee Carafe

What caused the carafe to fracture?

Were the applied tensile stresses too high or was the glass surface strength too low?

Read the case study in our recently released Q1 e-Newsletter to learn our conclusions on this breakage event here