Package making – Closing packages and filled receptacles – By means adapted to engage outturned seam of package cover
Patent
1997-01-13
1998-09-15
Coan, James F.
Package making
Closing packages and filled receptacles
By means adapted to engage outturned seam of package cover
156499, 156555, 156582, 1565831, B65B 5110
Patent
active
058062777
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
PRIOR ART
The invention is based on an apparatus for joining two strips of packaging material and as disclosed for instance in European Patent Application EP 0 432 126 A1. Such an apparatus is used particularly for sealing a plastic strip, comprising thermoplastic material and provided with wells for tablets, lozenges or the like, to a cover foil. In the known apparatus, the two strips of foil to be sealed to one another are preheated by means of a heating blower, which acts on the inlet region between the heating and sealing rollers.
It has been found in practice that such preheaters sometimes function unsatisfactorily; that is, a tight seal is not assured. This is true particularly for cover foils that are hard to handle. Cover foils that are hard to handle include for instance cover foils that are especially readily recycled, or those that have particular functional properties. This pertains in particular to so-called peel-off cover foils, which on the one hand should enable a tight bond with the plastic strip but on the other enable a simple manual peeling off of the cover foil from the plastic strip.
ADVANTAGES OF THE INVENTION
The apparatus according to the invention for joining two strips of packaging material has the advantage over the prior art that even hard-to-handle cover foil materials can be handled safely and reliably, so that tight seals with the underlying plastic strip are always produced.
Further advantages and advantageous further features of the apparatus of the invention for joining two strips of packaging material will become apparent from the claims and the specification.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
Two exemplary embodiments of the invention are shown in the drawing and will be described in further detail in the ensuing description. FIG. 1 shows an apparatus for joining two strips of packaging material in a simplified longitudinal section during two phases of operation, and FIG. 2, again in longitudinal section, shows a modified exemplary embodiment of FIG. 1.
DESCRIPTION OF THE EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS
An apparatus 10 for joining two strips of packaging material 11, 12 has a heating roller 15 that can pivot about a shaft 13 and a driven sealing roller 16 that cooperates with the heating roller 15. In the contact region 17 of the two rollers 15, 16, the two strips of packaging material, which can be called the bottom foil 11 and the cover foil 12, are joined or welded together in a manner known per se under the influence of heat and pressure.
In a preceding first station, not shown, wells 18 have been formed in the bottom foil 11, which is of thermoplastic material; the wells have then been filled at a second station, for instance with tablets. To transport the bottom foil 11, the sealing roller 16 has recesses 19 on its circumference that are adapted to the wells 18. The cover foil 12 is for instance of aluminum or a plastic material, such as polypropylene.
For heating the cover foil 12 to the requisite sealing temperature, not only the heating roller 15 is used but also a preheater 20 that cooperates with the heating roller 15. The preheater 20 has two heating plates 24, 25, spaced apart slightly and coinciding with the bottom and top sides 22 and 23, respectively, of the cover foil 12. The heating plate 25 acting on the top side 23 is advantageously joined to the heating roller 15 so that it can be pivoted out of the way about the shaft 13. The pivoted-away position of the heating roller 15 and heating plate 25 is shown in dashed lines in FIG. 1. To achieve the most uniform possible heating of the top side 23 of the cover foil 12, the end face 27 of the heating plate 25 toward the heating roller 15 is adapted form-fittingly to the heating roller 15, so that there is virtually no gap between the heating plate 25 and the heating roller 15. The heating plate 24 oriented toward the underside 22 of the cover foil 12 extends to approximately the level where the cover foil 12 rests on the heating roller 15. The end 28 of the heating plate 24 toward the sealing roller 16 is a
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Krieger Eberhard
Scheifele Horst
Coan James F.
Kim Gene L.
Robert & Bosch GmbH
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