Fluent material handling – with receiver or receiver coacting mea – Filling or refilling of dispensers – Aerosols
Reexamination Certificate
2000-09-15
2001-08-28
Douglas, Steven O. (Department: 3751)
Fluent material handling, with receiver or receiver coacting mea
Filling or refilling of dispensers
Aerosols
C141S003000, C222S402100, C222S402160, C222S394000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06279623
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an improved actuator for a pressurized aerosol valve. According to a first aspect of the invention, it relates to an improved actuator having a relatively softer plastic material or laminate permanently secured to a downwardly facing bottom skirt surface thereof, for engaging with a top surface of a mounting cup, during charging of an aerosol container with pressurized components, to provide an improved seal between the skirt of the actuator and the top surface of the mounting cup. According to a second aspect of the invention, it relates to an improved actuator having a charging arrangement which facilitates substantially complete purging of all of the pressurized charging components from the interior of the actuator, with an inert gas, to minimize discharge of the toxic filling components into the atmosphere of the production facility.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A pressurized product conventionally consists of a container, usually a metal can, which contains a product to be dispensed and a propellant and further includes a valve for controlling the flow of the product to be dispensed by the propellant. The pressurized container typically has the propellant supplied thereto by one of two process.
The first process is the under-the-valve-cup process. The under-the-valve-cup process supplies the propellant to the container before the mounting cup is affixed to the container. This process generally has known drawbacks and shortcomings with the major disadvantage of the under-the-valve-cup process being that it typically has a great loss of the propellant in comparison to the second process, i.e. the pressure filling process. In recent years, there has been a significant trend toward the pressure filling process for filling cans or containers. Currently, a majority of the billions of aerosol containers, which are filled yearly, utilize the pressure filling process.
According to this pressure filling process, the propellant is filled through the valve and then an actuator is subsequently installed on the valve. Alternatively, the container can be filled or charged with the actuator already installed on the valve.
The later pressure filling process is historically known as the button-on-filling (BOF) process. The advantage of the BOF process is that the purchaser of the valves is able to eliminate the step of installing the actuator on the valve, during the production operation, as it has already been previously installed by the valve assembly manufacturer.
One major difficulty encountered in pressurizing a container is achieving a sufficient seal between the filling or charging head, the actuator or spray button and the valve/mounting cup. Past designs employed a special sealing configuration located on the skirt of the actuator facing the top surface of the mounting cup. The pressure required for efficiently filling a container can reach as high as 60 atmospheres (900 psig). To compensate for such high pressures, the actuator recently has been made of a relatively soft material, such as polyethylene, in order to facilitate achieving a suitable seal between the actuator and the top portion of the mounting cup. The need to achieve an improved seal, during pressurization, is more important now because the pressurizing component (e.g. the gas) has been changed, in most manufacturing process, from chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) to hydrocarbons, which are flammable.
One drawback associated with using a softer material to manufacture the actuator is that the softer material has forced a compromise with respect to other functional aspects and considerations of the valve assembly. The softer material requires that a thicker walled, heavier spray actuator to be molded at slower production rates and at higher production costs. The use of the softer material also increases the cost of the actuators and the costs of the injection mold design and the construction as well as the maintenance of the injection molding equipment.
Despite various past efforts, directed at providing an adequate seal between the actuator and the mounting cup, it is still frequently necessary, during pressurization of a container, to increase the downward force of the filling or charging head to seal properly the actuator with the mounting cup. The resulting shortcoming is that the increased load may cause the mounting cup to be depressed excessively, thereby resulting in permanent deformation of the mounting cup. The excessive depression of the mounting cup pedestal may, in turn, produce unwanted side effects, e.g. leakage of the valve, etc.
A further problem of the prior art filling processes is that they tend to employ actuator designs which have one or more areas or cavities, within the interior of the actuator, which can trap and/or store a small quantity of the pressurized charging components and render it difficult to purge such trapped pressurized charging components from the actuator during a subsequent purging step. These trapped pressurized charging components are then immediately released directly into the production facility atmosphere, following completion of the charging process and separation of the charging head from the actuator. The direct release of the trapped pressurized charging components in the production facility atmosphere poses a safety hazard to the production workers and the environment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Wherefore, it is an object of the present invention to overcome the aforementioned shortcomings and drawbacks associated with the prior art actuator and mounting cup designs.
Another further object of the invention is to provide a relatively softer plastic layer, material, member or laminate to a bottom downwardly facing surface of the actuator so as to allow the relatively softer plastic layer, material, member or laminate of the actuator to sufficiently deform and effectively seal against the upwardly facing surface of the mounting cup.
A further object of the invention is to provide a superior seal between a base of the skirt of the actuator and top outwardly facing surface of the mounting cup to facilitate the manufacture of a major portion of the actuator from a harder, thinner walled and lighter weight material and the lower portion of the skirt from a relatively softer plastic layer, material or laminate.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide an improved seal between a base of the actuator and the top surface of the mounting cup so that an increased pressure may be utilized during the filling process and thereby minimize the time for filling each pressurized container.
A still further object of the invention is to simplify the actuator geometry so as to reduce the associated costs in the design, the construction and the maintenance of the injection molding equipment for producing the actuator.
Still another object of the invention is to provided a suitable rigid thin wall plastic actuator that has a thicker wall resilient material located at a base of the skirt to minimize the leakage of pressurized fluid between the charging head, the actuator and the associated mounting cup during pressurizing filling of a container via the button-on-filling process.
A further object of the invention is to provide a superior seal between both the charging head and the exterior surface of an upper lip of the actuator, and the bottom surface of the lower lip of the actuator and a top outwardly facing surface of the mounting cup to minimize leakage of any pressurized charging components between the pressurize head/actuator/mounting cup interfaces when pressurizing a container by the button-on-filling process.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide pressurized filling flow path, through the actuator, which eliminates the formation of any areas or cavities, within the interior of the actuator, where pooling, collection and/or storage of any of the pressurized charging components can occur, during the filling process, thereby facilitating a complete purging of all of the pressurized charging components following completion of th
Davis & Bujold P.L.L.C.
Douglas Steven O.
Summit Packaging Systems, Inc.
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