Effects of Ink Viscosity and Plate Velocity on the Plate-to-Plate Ink Transfer Rate

Abstract

In order to understand the effect of ink viscosity and printing speed on the ink transfer rate of gravure offset printing, a plate-to-plate offset printing equipment was assembled to simulate the gravure offset printing system. The images of the ink transfer process between two plates was deliberately recorded for further calculation. The experimental results revealed that the ink transfer rate increases as the plate velocity increases, especially this effect is more pronounced for higher viscosity ink. Our experimental results demonstrate that the mechanism of ink transfer rate is strongly subject to the mutual reinforcement between plate velocity and ink viscosity that could suppress the effect of surface hydrophobicity difference between the top/bottom substrates on ink transfer rate ultimately.