Package making – Apparatus for forming or partially forming receptacle and... – Forming a pocket – depression – or hollow compartment by...
Patent
1998-02-25
1999-12-07
Coan, James F.
Package making
Apparatus for forming or partially forming receptacle and...
Forming a pocket, depression, or hollow compartment by...
53250, 532845, 198347, 425526, B65B 302, B67C 790
Patent
active
059963220
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to improvements made in the field of in-line bottling plants comprising essentially a unit for manufacturing containers, in particular bottles, made of thermoplastic material, a unit for filling said containers and, interposed between the outlet of said unit for manufacturing the containers and the inlet of said unit for filling the containers, a unit for conveying the containers which have just been manufactured.
RELATED ART
For feeding bottling plants with containers to fill, it is known to manufacture said containers in a manufacturing unit which is geographically remote from the bottling unit, with transport of the containers by is road and/or rail from the manufacturing unit to the manufacturing unit [sic] to the filling unit.
To avoid the difficulties inherent in long-distance transport of the containers from the manufacturing unit to the filling unit, it is also known to instal the manufacturing unit in the vicinity of the filling unit and to transfer the containers from the former to the latter with the aid of a conveying device.
However, it has always been deemed necessary to provide a buffer between the manufacturing unit and the filling unit so as to reduce the effects on one of the units of the momentary stoppage of the other unit as a result of a brief incident. To this end, the conveying device was made in the form of a conveyor of very great developed length, possibly as much as 500 m or even more, which corresponds to a volume of several thousand containers.
Moreover, such a conveying device occupies considerable space. It is therefore doubly costly, in terms of equipment and in surface area occupied, and that much more so the greater the length. It has of course been possible to arrange the conveying device at least in part in an aerial manner in order to free the maximum surface area on the ground but the advantage obtained is minimal.
Furthermore, maintaining a conveying device of such great length in a reliable operational state proves difficult and costly, the difficulty and the cost being that much more expensive where the conveying device is long.
Attempts have of course been made to reduce the length of the conveyor and the surface area occupied by the conveyor device by making compact devices for temporary storage of empty containers, which are managed so as to regulate the flow of containers between the manufacturing unit and the filling unit. However, these storage devices have insufficient storage capacity for the saving on establishing and maintaining the conveying device to be felt to any significant degree. Furthermore, these storage devices are themselves costly to construct and require maintenance so that, ultimately, they have not brought the expected advantages.
Another disadvantage of the conveyors used is the possibility of damage to at least some of the containers transported. This is because, in the plants in question, wide use is made of pneumatic conveyors which bring into play a series of jets of air which act on the container, in particular on the neck of the latter, which is guided between two rails, which container, as it is empty and light, is then propelled at very high speed. The empty container is of course easily deformable and, if it collides with an obstacle (for example, a preceding container which has stopped or been displaced less quickly), it may itself suffer and/or cause the preceding container damage, for example deformation such as an indentation in the shoulder; this may lead to a loss of symmetry of the container which may cause its inclination in relation to the vertical for example and such a unit is no longer suitable for being conveniently gripped in the filling unit, which leads to malfunctioning of the latter.
An unacceptable deformation of the same type may also affect containers transported over great distances between geographically remote units.
It must also be borne in mind that damage to a number of containers leads to a not inconsiderable financial loss. The individual cost of
REFERENCES:
patent: 4208852 (1980-06-01), Pioch
patent: 4361759 (1982-11-01), King et al.
patent: 4635784 (1987-01-01), Bourgeois
patent: 5453237 (1995-09-01), Padovani
Coan James F.
Sidel
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