Special receptacle or package – Structural features for nesting identical receptacles or... – Having defined means to limit extent of nesting
Patent
1989-10-06
1991-03-12
Lowrance, George E.
Special receptacle or package
Structural features for nesting identical receptacles or...
Having defined means to limit extent of nesting
206515, 220 91, 220 96, 220266, 220270, B65D 2102
Patent
active
049986228
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a plastic pail with lid. The invention relates particularly to a plastic pail having a base, a wall widening conically from the latter towards the upper rim, the upper rim of which is constructed for the supporting and sealing reception of a lid, and two pockets arranged at the outer circumference of the wall, below the rim and at diametrically opposite points, and each provided with a hole to receive a carrying handle, and a plastic lid associated with said pail.
Pails with lid of this type are required to keep the granular, powdery, pasty or liquid material with which they are filled safely, to protect against accidental escape of this material and also against the entry of dust, dirt or moisture, to be mechanically stable and to be able to be opened and if possible also closed tightly again without special tools.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In a pail with lid according to U.S. Pat. No. 4,335,827 the abovementioned pockets to receive a carrying handle are part of a cylindrical ring concentrically enclosing the pail wall, which is supported by an annular disk-shaped support ring which projects radially from the pail in proximity of its upper rim.
However, said known pail does not fulfil the practical requirement that, in the case of mechanical stacking, a plurality of still empty pails are aligned in the circular direction so that their carrying handles all face the same side. Such an alignment facilitates, or even makes possible, the gripping and removal of the top pail of a stack by a gripper.
It is also not simple, in the case of the known pail with superposed lid, to grip said lid and remove it without a special tool.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The underlying object of the invention is to construct a pail with lid of the abovementioned type so that the lid of a closed pail can be gripped easily and removed without a special tool, and also so that a circular alignment of the empty pails when stacked nested is achieved without special additional outlay.
The object is achieved according to the invention in that the cylindrical ring is drawn down arcuately towards the pail base at two diametrically opposite points of the pail circumference sufficiently to permit the lid to be gripped there, and that the arcuately down-drawn points of the cylindrical ring are bounded on the upper side and on the lower side by arcs of equal radii thereby permitting a circular alignment of nested pails without lids, and that due to the degree of the conicity in the pail rim region and to the interval between cylindrical ring and pail wall and the width of the cylindrical ring which extends downwards from the support ring, it is ensured that the cylindrical rings are braced upon each other when stacked or at least approach each other sufficiently for their arcuate pieces to engage sufficiently in a circumferential direction.
When empty pails of this type are stacked nested, a mechanical rotation of the inserted uppermost pail by a comparatively small angular amount is sufficient in each case to bring the lower arcs of its arcuately down-drawn parts into engagement with the upper arcs of the pail beneath it. An exact angular alignment is not necessary in this case. On the contrary, it is sufficient if the aforesaid lower arc is located only partly above the aforesaid upper arc, because upon being inserted the upper pail, by virtue of its weight, then automatically slides with its lower arcs fully into the receiving upper arcs of the pail beneath it.
As a further development of the invention it is provided, in addition, that at both of the two diametrically opposite arcuately down-drawn points of the cylindrical ring the recesses located above the upper arcs and provided for grasping and removing the lid are each covered by a tear-off bridge located radially just outside the cylindrical ring. This bridge therefore immediately permits the aforementioned stacking of empty pails and their circular alignment, since the arcuately down-drawn points of the respective upper pail are
REFERENCES:
patent: 3425471 (1969-02-01), Yates
patent: 3550807 (1970-12-01), Yates
patent: 4293073 (1981-10-01), Yates
patent: 4296871 (1981-10-01), Andersson
patent: 4449641 (1984-05-01), Jorgensen
patent: 4821910 (1989-04-01), Poirier
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