Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids – Apparatus – For hollow article
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-26
2001-02-13
Gravini, Stephen (Department: 3749)
Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids
Apparatus
For hollow article
C034S211000, C034S212000, C034S225000, C034S233000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06185835
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to the packaging of commodities and in particular to the packaging of such items for transportation prior to sale of the items to wholesalers or the ultimate end users.
It is well known that in modern trade the place of manufacture of an item and the place of sale of such an item either to a wholesaler or to an end user may be geographically far apart. This is particularly so in the case of the manufacture of clothing, cushions, bedding, towels and like products which are either wholly or partially constructed of fabric, and which may include foam or other readily compressible materials. Such items may conveniently be referred to as commodities.
When selling a commodity that is manufactured a long way from its point of sale, for instance much clothing is made in the Far East and sold in Europe, a significant portion of the expense involved in the sale of such clothing is a result of transportation costs. Such costs include the cost of physically moving the articles of clothing from their point of manufacture to the point of sale, and the cost of placing the clothing in a fit state for sale once the clothing has reached the point of sale.
It is current practice to transport a commodity such as clothing in shipping containers. The cost of transporting a shipping container is dependent upon the size of the container rather than its weight. Thus the greater the density of packing of the container the lower the cost of transporting the clothing per unit clothing transported. However, it is well known that for many commodities which are wholly or partially made of fabric the more densely packed a transportation container is the greater the time and effort that will be needed once the commodity has reached its point of sale, to place that commodity in a fit condition for sale. Such effort may include activities such as hanging in unrestricted space for a period of time, ironing, pressing or other treatments in case of clothing. Clearly such activities may offset any savings made as a result of densely packing the shipping container.
Various methods of preparing commodities for transportation so as to maximise the density of items transported but minimise the cost of placing the items in saleable condition have been suggested.
One such suggestion is to vacuum pack the commodity, thus reducing its bulk before transportation, and removing the commodity from the vacuum packing either before sale, or, in some instances, allowing the purchaser to remove it from the packaging. Vacuum packing the commodity and the compression that occurs during vacuum packing can leave the commodity very creased if no conditioning of the fabric of the commodity occurs before the vacuum packing.
A known method of conditioning of the fabric prior to vacuum packing consists of adjusting the fabrics' relative humidity and temperature to predetermined levels. Such techniques are known and British patent GB 1597243 discusses the relationship of humidity, temperature and creasing in greater detail.
Apparatus used to condition the fabric according to this method is known and disclosed in British patent GB 1597242. In GB 1597242 there is disclosed a conditioning tunnel through which clothing or some other commodity to be conditioned passes on a conveyor mechanism whilst hanging on appropriate hangers. From the floor of the tunnel air conditioned to a predetermined temperature and humidity is forced from a main air supply into the tunnel toward the clothing, and flows out of outlet vents situated at the top of each side wall of the tunnel. The air exiting the tunnel through the vents travels through an air treatment device to be reconditioned with respect to temperature and humidity and is then placed back into the main air supply system to be forced once more into the tunnel. GB 1597242 discloses that it is desirable to have the air forced towards the clothing conditioned to have a first conditioning temperature and humidity for the first conditioning portion of the tunnel and a second stabilising temperature and humidity in the second stabilising portion of the tunnel.
The apparatus as disclosed in GB 1597242 has been found in practice to have disadvantages. Firstly, it has been found that if a batch of garments, that is the garments are next to each other and lightly touching, is to be conditioned the air blown at the garments does not fully penetrate the garments, and at the end of conditioning the temperature and relative humidity of the fabric forming the garments varies according to where the sample of fabric tested is within the garment as a whole, and where in the batch the particular item of clothing is located. Clearly if the fabric of each garment is not properly conditioned throughout each garment the vacuum packing of the batch of garments may well result in garments that when unpacked are partially in satisfactory condition and partially require attention to bring the garments into saleable condition. This is undesirable.
The above mentioned problems with the apparatus disclosed in GB 1597242 are overcome by that apparatus if the batch of garments remains in the apparatus for sufficient time, i.e. several hours or days. If this approach to overcoming the problems is adopted however, the economies resulting from the packaging of the garments as described are offset by the costs arising from the low throughput of garments through the apparatus. Thus simply increasing the time the garments remain in the apparatus is not a satisfactory solution to the above problem of the apparatus.
A second problem with the apparatus disclosed in 1597242 is that the apparatus is only provided with one air treatment device 52. This results in the air passing through the air treatment device, which is used throughout the conditioning process of the garments being of a single temperature and humidity. This means that it is very difficult to vary the temperature of the conditioning air through the conditioning portion for stabilising should such variance be desired. With modern synthetic fabrics it has been found that such variance is very important to successful conditioning.
According to the present invention there is provided apparatus for the conditioning of a commodity suitable for vacuum packing in which there is provided a conditioning tunnel including a floor, a ceiling, and first and second side walls, through which tunnel runs a conveyor system for transporting the commodity, air inlets for directing streams of air into the tunnel, air outlet means through which air may be extracted, means for conveying air from the outlet means to apparatus for dehumidifying the air, and means for conveying the dehumidified air to the air inlets, in which at least one of the side walls of the tunnel is provided with at least one means for influencing the flow path of the air passing from the inlet to the outlet. The advantage of this configuration is that the means for influencing the flow path of the air (or causing turbulence in the air in the tunnel) causes the air stream between the inlet and outlet to cease to be a smooth air stream that may well simply flow around the commodity, to an air stream that is turbulent and which accordingly buffets the commodity from a multitude of different directions. This multi-directional buffeting of the commodity causes the dehumidified air to penetrate a batch of garments to a much greater degree than a smooth flow of air, and accordingly results in a much evener and complete conditioning of the commodity than is achieved by the prior art.
In one preferred embodiment the air inlet means pass through both side walls of the tunnel, one or more of the air inlet means is provided with an air temperature regulation means to regulate the temperature of the input air, and the air extraction means are located in the ceiling of the tunnel.
In this preferred embodiment the means for influencing the flow path for the air passing from the inlet to the outlet is located in the mouth of the air inlet means.
Alternatively, the present invention provides apparatus for the conditi
Enbom Sven Äke
Mitchell John Anderson
Sing Lee Alex Tin
Darby & Darby
Gravini Stephen
Qualpak UK Limited
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