Flexible bags – With means to facilitate manual separation of flattened bag...
Patent
1991-07-08
1995-07-18
Garbe, Stephen P.
Flexible bags
With means to facilitate manual separation of flattened bag...
383104, 383904, B65D 3010
Patent
active
054335264
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a flexible bag of a heat-sealable or heat-weldable plastic sheet material and adapted to receive liquid and/or pasty media, comprising two sidewall-forming flat elements sealingly connected to each other along their longitudinal edges and their lower transverse edge and forming a dispensing opening at their upper end.
2. Discussion of Prior Art
Such bags made of plastic sheet material are known in particular for use as disposable beverage packages e.g. from DE-U-88 07 593.1. Such packages usually terminate in a pointed end and have a filling volume of 0.2 litres. The sheet material employed for such beverage packages comprises a thick aluminum sheet layer serving among other purposes to stabilize the package. Such flexible bags are usually designed as stand-up bags. The bottom side is formed with a support bottom permitting the bag to be placed on a support after it has been opened without the risk of the bag's contents spilling from the dispensing opening or the bag toppling over. In beverage packages of this type the dispensing opening may for instance be determined by a pierceable, weakened portion capable of being pierced by a drinking straw terminating in a pointed end.
Aside from beverages, flexible bags are also used for filling them with liquid or pasty media, e.g. liquid detergents. Flexible bags of this type are mainly used as refill packages.
A basic advantage of the flexible bags can be seen in the fact that they can be folded extremely flat in their empty state so as to require very little space.
The filling of such flexible bags with liquid or pasty media is carried out in an automatic operation. For this purpose, the bag is placed upright with its dispensing opening pointing upwardly so as to permit a filling spout to be inserted thereinto. After the bag has been filled, the dispensing opening is closed by welding or sealing. During the fully automatic filling of the flexible bags at a high speed it has been found difficult to open the dispensing opening or dispensing spout in such fashion that the filling spout can be inserted, since the sheet material walls often tend to stick together.
A flexible plastic bag is known from US-A-40-78 717 which was produced from a sheet material tube. Grip aids are impressed in the sidwalls of the folded tube to make a manual unfolding of the bag possible. However, these grip aids do not allow the putting on of suction means.
A bag consisting mainly of cardboard is known from US-A-42 61 253. The impressing lines in the sidewalls of the bag and at a folding edge serve as joints, about which an unfolding of the sidewalls of the bags in prismatic form becomes possible upon the exertion of pressure on the opposite side edges.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is the object of the invention to provide a flexible bag, whose dispensing opening or dispensing spout can be easily opened for the filling operation and which is in particular suited for an automatic filling operation.
This object is attained according to the invention by the fact that at least one embossed area extends in each case in the area of the dispensing opening in two opposite parts of the sidewall, which is outwardly directed from the inner sides, the embossed area of the two sidewalls being opposite to each other in coinciding positions and terminating at the edge of the dispensing opening.
An opening is formed by the embossed areas which are opposite to each other and are outwardly directed in the area of the dispensing opening, which is also present in the folded flexible bag. This opening offers the great advantage that it permits air to enter the flexible bag as soon as the unfolding of the bag is initiated for instance by means of suction devices disposed at lateral positions adjacent the dispensing opening and operable to pull the two side-walls apart. Since the opening defined by the embossed areas permits air to readily enter the bag at this time, the suction devices are capable of readily opening the dispensin
REFERENCES:
patent: 3113715 (1963-12-01), Pangrac
patent: 4078717 (1978-03-01), Stearley
patent: 4261253 (1981-04-01), Smith, II
patent: 4848931 (1989-07-01), Kamada et al.
Garbe Stephen P.
Indag Gesellschaft fur Industriebedarf mbH
LandOfFree
Flexible bag does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Flexible bag, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Flexible bag will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2416861