A specified interval after heat sealing during which the seal cools before a defined handling or measurement endpoint.
Also called: post-seal cooling time; heat-seal cooling time; seal cooling interval.
When does seal cooling time start and end?
Define the interval for the process or test. In laboratory hot-tack work, it can run from sealing to tensile withdrawal; on a production line, it may describe cooling-device contact or a downstream delay. Dwell, delay and cooling timers need their own start and end events.
State the events rather than transferring a number between interfaces. A delay measured from jaw opening to peel initiation is not automatically equal to time spent against a cooling plate. It also says nothing by itself about the coolant temperature or the seal’s actual thermal history.
Why include cooling time with seal-strength results?
Hot and cooled bonds represent different test states. Results taken immediately after sealing and after a defined cooling period should not be treated as measurements of identical bond development. Keep the delay and cooling conditions with the result.
Report the cooling delay and conditions with specimen construction, sealing conditions and pull speed. Relate the result to the relevant early-handling load. Elapsed time alone does not establish the temperature reached by the seal.