Systems for producing articles from glass tube include a converter having a base with a plurality of processing stations and a turret moveable relative to the base. The turret indexes a plurality of holders for holding the glass tubes successively through the processing stations. The systems further include a gas flow system or a suction system for producing a flow of gas through the glass tube during one or more heating, forming, separating or piercing operations. The flow of gas through the glass tube produced by the gas flow system or suction system may be sufficient to evacuate or purge volatile constituents of the glass from the glass tube and/or pierce a meniscus formed on the glass tube during separation, thereby reducing the Surface Hydrolytic Response (SHR) of the interior surface of the glass tube and articles made therefrom.

A method for molding end portions on glass containers that store pharmaceutical active ingredients is provided. The glass containers are produced from a glass tube by hot-forming, an end portion having a neck opening using a centrally disposed opening forming tool interacting with a shaping tool at one end of the glass containers. In the method, dimensional data is provided for the respective glass tube and the position of the shaping tool is adjusted in a motorized manner in the axial direction (z) of the glass containers so as to correspond to the provided dimensional data for the respective glass tube.

A glass container is provided that includes a tube, a circular bottom, and a longitudinal axis. A curved glass heel extends from an outer end the bottom to the first end of the tube. The outer surface has a topography defined by a function ?(x) that is an azimuthal average of a distance between a contact plane and the outer surface at any given position located on a circle having the centre and the radius |x|. The values ? for ?(x) are determined for a plurality of circles the radius of which increases stepwise by 500 ?m starting with a circle around the centre having a radius of 500 ?m. The values ? are determined in a range from x=?0.4?d2/2 to x=+0.4?d2/2, d2 having a size such that at least 4 values ? are determined and can be fitted with a curvature function $\hat{h}\left(x\right)=\frac{-c?x^2}{1+\sqrt{1-c^2?x^2}}+h_0.$

A system for producing articles from glass tube includes a converter having a base with a plurality of processing stations and a turret moveable relative to the base. The turret indexes a plurality of holders for holding the glass tubes successively through the processing stations. The system further includes a thermal imaging system that includes a thermal imager coupled to the turret for movement with the turret. The thermal imaging system may also include a mirror coupled to the thermal imager and positioned to reflect infrared light from one of the plurality of holders to the thermal imager. The thermal imaging system may measure one or more characteristics of the glass tube during the conversion process. Processes for controlling the converter using the thermal imaging system to measure one or more process variables are also disclosed.

A system for producing articles from glass tube includes a converter having a base with a plurality of processing stations and a turret moveable relative to the base. The turret indexes a plurality of holders for holding the glass tubes successively through the processing stations. The system further includes a thermal imaging system that includes a thermal imager coupled to the turret for movement with the turret. The thermal imaging system may also include a mirror coupled to the thermal imager and positioned to reflect infrared light from one of the plurality of holders to the thermal imager. The thermal imaging system may measure one or more characteristics of the glass tube during the conversion process. Processes for controlling the converter using the thermal imaging system to measure one or more process variables are also disclosed.

A system for producing articles from glass tube includes a converter having a base with a plurality of processing stations and a turret moveable relative to the base. The turret indexes a plurality of holders for holding the glass tubes successively through the processing stations. The system further includes a thermal imaging system that includes a thermal imager coupled to the turret for movement with the turret. The thermal imaging system may also include a mirror coupled to the thermal imager and positioned to reflect infrared light from one of the plurality of holders to the thermal imager. The thermal imaging system may measure one or more characteristics of the glass tube during the conversion process. Processes for controlling the converter using the thermal imaging system to measure one or more process variables are also disclosed.