Uflex Limited’s cylinders business division, after an intense R&D of almost three years, has been able to optimize cell structures of laser engraved rotogravure cylinders to an extent that can actually result in about 20-25% less ink consumption than what the electro-mechanically engraved counterpart would require in order to render the same image resolution and enhancement. According to Uflex, the printing output by a laser engraved cylinder is much enhanced and high definition compared to printing by an electro-mechanically engraved cylinder. Unlike electro-mechanical engraving which produces a conventional cell shape, laser engraving offers immense flexibility towards altering cell shapes and structures for the rotogravure cylinders. This is the fundamental reason that results in low ink GSM while printing on the substrate.

To understand this point better, it is rather important to have a quick recapitulation about the roll the typical cells of a roto-gravure cylinder play during the printing process:The ink is picked up by the cylinder and transferred on to the substrate. The rotogravure cylinder is immersed in the ink sump and during the process of printing the recessed (engraved) cells pick up the ink.The substrate gets sandwiched between the impression roller and the gravure cylinder. At this juncture the ink gets transferred from recessed cells to the substrate by capillary action.

Explaining the recent break-through of lesser ink consumption in rotogravure printing, PK Agarwal, joint president, cylinders business, Uflex Limited said,“On the laser engraving set-up, our team has been able to create various modifications on honeycomb cell structure, line cell structure, TB cell structure and others which in turn during the print run render solid backgrounds, coating with high & low depths, other specialized coatings, vignettes, half tone images among several others. Typical cross-sections of an electro-mechanically engraved cylinder having conventional cell structure and a laser engraved rotogravure cylinder having modified/ optimized cell structure are shown herein below.”