The Leipzig-based company emtec Electronic GmbH will present its Tactile Sensation Analyzer (TSA) at the 35th annual Hofer Vliesstofftage from September 20-21, 2022 at the Freiheitshalle in Hof, Germany. Rising energy costs, supply chain disruption, and sustainability concerns are some of the central topics to be discussed at the international event.

Convening after a two-year COVID-induced hiatus, speakers, exhibitors and visitors at the event will discuss the latest technologies, trends, and developments affecting the nonwovens industry.

Now more than ever, nonwovens manufacturers are increasingly looking for ways to reduce energy consumption, save costs, and still optimise the quality of their product lines. One approach has been to replace lengthy manual quality control processes with automatic digital solutions. The TSA Tactile Sensation Analyzer from emtec Electronic presents a unique, portable device that delivers valuable data about the haptic, deformation, and recovery behaviour of nonwoven materials quickly and reliably.

The instrument was recently hailed in the trade magazine Textile Insight as “Zoom for your fingers,” in that it takes the physical sense of touch, digitises it, and essentially integrates it into a virtual setting. This allows manufacturers to consistently reproduce the way a product feels to the touch, even when using locally sourced materials in a new location, for instance. A similar machine, the Tissue Softness Analyzer, has already become an industry standard for measuring tissue, the company said in a press release.

The Tactile Sensation Analyzer is poised to replace the hand-panel testing, in which a certain number of touch experts compare and rank samples based on overall haptic impression. The organisation and implementation of such hand-panel tests are often complex and time-consuming. In addition to the time factor, some of the major disadvantages of the manual hand-panel method include the high variance of individual results. An average value of many samples is usually needed to arrive at a reliable value. The human hand is also incapable of reliably distinguishing between haptic parameters, such as softness or smoothness, and cannot objectively measure how elastic a product feels, for example.

Participants to the Hofer Vliesstofftage are invited to stop by the emtec Electronic exhibit and speak with the area sales manager Stefan Rübesam for a more detailed discussion or to see a demonstration of the machine.