Freudenberg Medical debuts continuous inner measurement for tubing

Freudenberg Medical said today it has developed a ground-breaking new technology to continuously measure the inner geometry of silicone tubes. The new technology significantly increases product quality for high-precision applications, such as pacemaker lead insulation, and dramatically cuts down on material usage and process time, according to the Kaiserslautern, Germany-based company.

The new measurement system, Helix iMC, is unique to the medical device market and is specifically designed for medical silicone extrusion, the company said in a news release. Helix iMC uses sensor technology to continuously measure the inner geometry of extruded products such as single- or multi-lumen IDs, wall thickness, or concentricity as an inline process.

“Until now, it was not possible to measure the ID (inner diameter) of silicone tubing without making manual cuts at various cross-sections, usually an off-line process,“ said Freudenberg president Max Kley in the news release. “Now with our innovative Helix iMC technology, we offer customers more efficiency — better control, continuous processing and less scrap — for an overall increase in quality and a significant cost savings.“

Continuous data monitoring across a complete production run, without interruption and sample cuts, may reduce validation time and get new products to market faster. Critical medical devices will particularly benefit from the ability to completely control and document every critical dimension throughout an entire production run and not just on a sample basis, the company added.