Package making – With fugitive preconditioning of cover material
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-18
2001-03-20
Sipos, John (Department: 3721)
Package making
With fugitive preconditioning of cover material
C053S167000, C053S426000, C250S455110, C422S024000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06202384
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to new and useful improvements in machines for degerming webs of packing foil. More particularly, the invention relates to means for generating UV-rays along or within which is advanced the web of packing foil discharged from a supply reel for sterilizing purposes to be then fed to a packing machine for further processing thereof while keeping the same sterile, with the term “processing” conveying, for example, molding, loading, closing and separating packings from a strip of packing foil.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The use of UV-radiators for germ reduction also in webs of packing foil corresponding exposed, sterilized and advanced in a so-called disinfecting tube to be subsequently passed through molding, loading and sealing stations of a packing machine, are generally known in the art.
Conventional UV-based degermers for webs of packing foil operate on so-called radiator cassettes linearly arranged along the strip of packing foil, wherein the rear side of the housing accommodating the UV-radiator, for achieving enhanced ray utilization, must be silvered and of a reflector-type design. To insure the required degree of exposure, in addition, either special cassettes of a great width or length are employed or a plurality of smaller-sized cassettes are to be successively arranged along the conveyor track of the web of packing foil equally involving large space-requirements. In view of the operating life of UV-radiators which is limited, as a rule, to about 2000 hours, high replacement costs are involved, in addition, especially high costs are incurred by assembly, maintenance and cleaning operations as well as by the stoppage times involved.
Conventional UV-radiators, in addition, result in considerable ozone generation and, beyond that are likely to have a negative influence on the packing material (pollutant migration).
Water-cooled radiator systems that are also known in the art tend to form condensate once the dew point is fallen below which is likely to result in a direct reduction of the UV-exposure of the packings and also in an indirect reduction of exposure as a consequence of corrosive effects on the reflector faces.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is the object of the invention to provide a means for degerming webs of packing foil by employing a UV-radiator requiring no radiation reflectors, with the said means involving low space requirements despite a relatively large exposure surface of the web of packing foil, with the surface exposed being adapted to be well protected and enclosed, thereby insuring a uniform intensity of exposure of the web of packing foil advanced therealong, at the same time maintaining a high density and enabling, in an extremely simple way, the “bare” radiator free from a cassette or housing to be associated to the web of packing foil to be exposed and, hence, permitting worn-out radiators to be easily and quickly replaced by new ones.
These requirements, in the practice of the invention, are complied with by a degermer in that a UV-radiator of rod-type design is centrally arranged between guiding elements for the web of packing foil disposed at an equidistant radial distance about the UV-ray generator, with web deflecting members being associated at the inlet and/or outlet sides to the web supply track of a substantially circular configuration as defined by the said elements, with the web deflecting members feeding the web of packing foil into or out of the circular supply track.
The “and/or”-options (yet to be explained in closer detail hereinafter) merely result from different alternatives of feeding or introducing the web of packing foil into or out of the track of exposure. Thanks to the configuration of the degermer according to the invention a highly constricted yet relatively extended track of exposure is provided to which the centrally located UV-radiator held in an easy-to-mount way on one end only, without any reflectors, will radially and circumferentially release its rays with full and uniform density.
Basically, in the practice of the invention, initially, only one side of the web of packing foil is exposed to radiation, namely the side which, subsequently, gets into contact, in the packing machine, with the material to be loaded. The reason for this resides in that webs of packing foil also are advanced and processed in sterile semi-cylindrical tubes in the adjoining packing machine so that the other side of the strip of foil need not be sterile. Semi-cylindrical tubes of this type held sterile are being used, in particular, in deep-drawing machines.
However, as packing machines having sterile full-cylindrical tubes, i.e. sterile tubes completely enclosing the web of packing foil passing therethrough, involve less structural efforts, an advantageous and preferred embodiment of the device of the invention resides in that associated to the circular track of supply and exposure is another circular supply track, with one of the said tracks being provided with feed-in deflection elements and the other of said tracks being provided with discharge deflection elements. In other words, this constitutes a quasi S-type guidance of the packing foil to be degermed on both sides, wherein the strip of packing foil discharged from the first supply track and degermed on one side, with the side not yet degermed, now faces the UV-radiator in the following exposure track, in order to be fed into the directly following supply track in which the UV-radiator equally arranged centrally will act upon the side of the web of packing foil not yet degermed.
Apart from this directly neighbored association of two such circular tracks of supply and exposure to be successively passed by the web of packing foil it will be readily possible (yet to be explained hereinafter in greater detail) to provide two or more of such pairs of supply tracks in successive relationship should this be necessary, depending on the desired or required degree of sterilization.
The guiding elements defining the circular guidance of the web of packing foil can be made of rod-type rolling members; alternatively, they can be in the form of a cylinder of UV-permeable material.
Other objects and advantages of the invention will appear more fully hereinafter as the description proceeds, with reference to the accompany drawings.
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Kurth Gunter
Sabotka Ingo
Collard & Roe P.C.
Hassia Verpackungsmaschinen GmbH
Sipos John
LandOfFree
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