Package making – With alarm – signal – or indicator – Visual or audible alarm
Reexamination Certificate
2000-12-27
2004-05-18
Rada, Rinaldi I. (Department: 3721)
Package making
With alarm, signal, or indicator
Visual or audible alarm
C053S510000, C053S511000, C053S433000, C053S551000, C053S552000, C053S575000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06735928
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to the art of packaging and, more particularly to a bagging and packaging machine for successively forming bags from a strip of bag material and subsequently packaging an article into each of the bags.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, the bagging and packaging machine for successively producing bagged products by forming bags from a strip of bag material and subsequently packaging an article into each of the bag undergoes a process of forming the strip of bag material, supplied to a bag former, into a tubular form by means of the bag former by overlapping opposite longitudinal side edges with each other; fusion bonding, by means of a longitudinal sealing unit, the overlapped longitudinal side edges of the tubular strip of bag material in a direction longitudinally thereof at an outer surface of a front wall of an article introducing tube member forming a part of the bag former and, then, fusion bonding the tubular strip of bag material in a direction perpendicular to the longitudinal sense of the tubular strip of bag material to form a bottom seal by means of a transverse sealing unit; after an article has been introduced into the tubular strip of bag material through the article introducing tube member, fusion bonding an upper portion of the tubular strip of bag material by means of the transverse sealing unit to form an upper seal to seal the article within the tubular strip of bag material; and finally cutting the tubular strip of bag material along the upper seal to thereby to produce a bagged product containing the article sealed within the bag.
In the practice of this process, where the article filled in each of the successively formed bags is food material, it is a general practice to form the upper seal in the bag after an inert gas such as, for example, nitrogen gas or argon gas has been substituted for air contained in the bag containing the article therein.
The gas replacement method used in conjunction with this type of bagging and packaging machine for substituting the inert gas for the air within each of the bags includes, where a high speed handling is desired to be enhanced, supplying either continuously or intermittently of the inert gas at a predetermined flow rate into each of the bags simultaneously with filling of the article into the respective bag, to thereby purge the air within such bag.
However, in the practice of the above discussed gas replacement method, although a relatively high rate of replacement with the inert gas can be secured as a large flow of the inert gas is supplied into each of the bags, it has been found that since the amount of the inert gas supplied from the gas supply unit is relatively large, the cost of making the bagged products tends to increase correspondingly.
In addition to the foregoing problem, another problem has been found in that with the above discussed gas replacement method, to maintain the rate of gas replacement at a relatively high level, the flow velocity of the inert gas has to be increased so that the amount of the inert gas supplied per unitary time can be increased. However, increase of the gas flow velocity tends to result in that the inert gas is vigorously introduced into the bag and, consequently, some of items of the article to be bagged are blown upwardly within the bag and/or an introduction of the article towards the bottom of the bag is hampered. In such case, when the upper seal is to be formed in the filled bag by means of the transverse sealing unit, some of items of the article which have been blown upwards within the bag or which have been retarded to reach the bottom of the bag are often “bitten” by the transverse sealing unit, resulting in an unacceptably defective bagged product.
In an attempt to substantially eliminate the above discussed problems, the Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 10-53217, for example, discloses a bagging and packaging machine in which the flow of the inert gas is varied at each of a plurality of processing stages of one cycle of forming the tubular form from the strip of the bag material, filling the article into the resultant tubular strip of the bag material and sealing the filled tubular strip with the article therein.
In the machine disclosed in the above described Japanese publication, during a period in which the article is supplied from above through the tube member into the tubular strip of the bag material then formed into an open-topped bag, the inert gas is supplied into the tubular form at a first flow rate of a value not so high to avoid upward blow-up of some of the items of the articles within the tubular form and also to avoid disturbance to a smooth introduction of the items of the article down to the bottom of the tubular form; and a period subsequent to completion of the filling of the article into the tubular form, the inert gas is supplied into the filled tubular form at a second flow rate higher than the first flow rate. The second flow rate is so chosen as to accomplish an immediate substitution of the inert gas for the air stagnating in an upper region of the interior of the tubular form while avoiding the blow-up of some of the items of the article within the tubular form.
Accordingly, the possibility can be minimized in which when the upper portion of the tubular form having the articles filled therein is to be sealed, some of the items of the article which have been blown up within the tubular form and have been retarded from reaching the bottom of the tubular form may be bitten by the sealing unit. Also, any possible undesirable increase of the amount of the inert gas supplied from the gas supply unit into the tubular form can be suppressed.
It is, however, to be noted that the bagging and packaging machine disclosed in the above discussed Japanese publication employs the inert gas supply system in which the different flow rates of the inert gas are employed for each of the processing stages of one packaging cycle to thereby substantially eliminate the above discussed problems. Hence, so long as the bagging and packaging machine is continuously run without being halted, the gas replacement rate at a relatively high level can be secured and the amount of the inert gas supplied from the gas supply unit can be minimized.
However, other than the occasion that the prior art bagging and packaging machine is halted manually by the attendant worker when the bagging and packaging operation is desired to be interrupted, it often occurs that the bagging and packaging machine is halted or temporarily interrupted by some reason. In such case, the gas supply unit incorporated in the bagging and packaging machine will continue supplying the inert gas regardless of the operating state (i.e., halted or interrupted) of the bagging and packaging machine, and therefore, the amount of the inert gas supplied, that is, the usage of the inert gas tends to be unnecessarily increased.
Also, with the prior art bagging and packaging machine of the type discussed above, the attendant worker has to bring the inert gas supply unit into inoperative position in the event of the machine being halted or interrupted temporarily, and to reopen the supply of the inert gas in the event of the machine resuming a normal operating condition. It has, however, been found that when and after the machine is resumed to the normal operating condition, a relatively long time is required for the flow rate of the inert gas being supplied to be stabilized at a predetermined value and, as a result, enhancement of the bagging and packaging operation at a high speed tends to be hampered and/or the gas replacement rate tends to be lowered.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention pertains to the bagging and packaging machine of a type wherein the gas replacement takes place and aims at solving incompatible problems of attaining a relatively high gas replacement rate by sufficiently supplying the inert gas with no possibility of some of the items of the article being bitten at t
Kondo Masashi
Sato Ryoichi
Hogan & Hartson LLP
Ishida Co. Ltd.
Rada Rinaldi I.
Weeks Gloria R
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