System of injection blow molding and injection molding device

Details System of injection blow molding and injection molding device System of injection blow molding and injection molding device

2000-08-31

2003-08-19

Davis, Robert (Department: 1722)

Plastic article or earthenware shaping or treating: apparatus

Female mold and means to shape parison directly by internal...

With heating or cooling means

C425S529000, C425S533000, C425S534000, C425S556000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06607375

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a system and method of injection blow molding and injection molding device, and particularly to a system and method of injection blow molding in which preforms are injection molded before temperature regulating, and then blow molded into containers.
2. Description of the Prior Art
One of the injection blow molding systems for molding containers is described in Japanese Patent Publication No. 3-45692, for example.
The injection blow molding system described in this Japanese Patent Publication No. 3-45692 is shown in
FIG. 15
of the accompany drawings and comprises an injection molding station
2
, a first temperature regulating station
4
, a second temperature regulating station
6
, a blow molding station
8
and a removing station
10
, all of which are arranged in a line.
The injection molding station
2
simultaneously injection molds two rows of four preforms
12
arranged in a direction perpendicular to a preform carrying direction shown by an arrow in this figure. The pitch P
1
between two rows of the injection molded preforms
12
(which will be referred to “the injection molding pitch P
1
”) is then changed to a larger pitch P
2
for blow molding in the blow molding station
8
(which will be referred to “the blow molding pitch P
2
”). The preforms
12
are then carried through the first and second temperature regulating stations
4
,
6
, blow molding station
8
and removing station
10
while the blow molding pitch P
2
is maintained.
In the injection molding station
2
, the preforms
12
are injection molded and carried in their upright state.
Since the injection blow molding system of Japanese Patent Publication No. 3-45692 is designed to change the injection molding pitch P
1
to the blow molding pitch P
2
immediately after the preforms
12
have been injection molded, the preforms
12
will be carried with this larger pitch P
2
from the injection molding station
2
through the first and second temperature regulating stations
4
,
6
to the blow molding station
8
. This causes a waste of space in the first and second temperature regulating stations
4
,
6
, resulting in increase of the entire system size and manufacturing cost.
When beverage containers or the like are to be molded by such a system, it is desired to maintain the molding room clean. When such a clean atmosphere is to be maintained in the larger area, the installation and maintenance costs will be increased. To avoid this, it is important to reduce the area of installation as small as possible.
Furthermore, such an injection blow molding system is designed to carry the upright preforms
12
. When the preforms
12
are heated, the necks of the erected preforms
12
may be excessively heated to be undesirably deformed because the necks of the preforms
12
are topped and the heat moves upward. In this case, further, carrying members used to carry the preforms may also be adversely affected by the heat.
Since the preforms
12
are blow molded by the blow molding station
8
in their upright state, the necessary parts for blow molding the preforms
12
such as stretching rods and others must be placed above the preforms
12
. This will increase the entire height of the system and raise a problem in the installation space and maintenance.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An object of the present invention is to prevent any wasteful use of space when carrying the preforms and to improve the efficiency on molding.
Another object of the present invention is to reduce the installation area of the system to as small as possible.
Still another object of the present invention is to prevent the necks of the preforms from being excessively heated and also to avoid the preform carrying members from being adversely affected by the heat.
A further object of the present invention is to reduce the entire height of the system and also the installation space and also to facilitate the maintenance.
According to one aspect of the present invention, an injection blow molding system comprises:
an injection molding station for injection molding preforms;
a cooling station for cooling the preforms while carrying the preforms in a first direction;
a first delivering section for receiving the preforms from the injection molding station and delivering the preforms to the cooling station;
a heating station for heating the preforms cooled by the cooling station while carrying the preforms in the first direction;
a plurality of blow molding stations for stretch blow molding the preforms into containers; and
a second delivering section for receiving the preforms from the heating station and delivering the preforms to the blow molding stations;
wherein:
the injection molding station has an injection mold for simultaneously injection molding the preforms in an upright state, when the preforms are arranged in an M×N (M≧2, N≧2) matrix having M rows extending parallel to a second direction which is perpendicular to the first direction and N columns in each row;
the first delivering section has a removing mechanism for removing the M×N matrix of the preforms in an upright state out of the injection molding station, and an inverting mechanism for inverting the preforms to deliver to the cooling station;
the cooling station and the heating station have a first carrying path in common for intermittently carrying one row of N preforms at a time in an inverted state;
the second delivering section has a transfer mechanism for receiving the one row of N preforms heated by the heating station from the first carrying path to transfer to the blow molding stations in an inverted state; and
each of the blow molding stations includes:
a second carrying path having a substantially rectangular shape with two shorter sides and two longer sides;
a receiving section located on one of the shorter sides in the second carrying path for receiving the preforms from the second delivering section in a state of inversion;
a blow molding section located on one of the longer sides in the second carrying path for simultaneously stretch blow molding the preforms received by the receiving section into containers; and
a removing section located on the other shorter side opposite to the receiving section for removing the containers molded by the blow molding section.
According to the present invention, the system will not be spread in a direction perpendicular to the first direction because the injection molding station, first delivering section, cooling station, heating station, second delivering section and blow molding station are arranged linearly in the first direction. This can minimize the installation area and save the space. Particularly, the area of the clean room in which the beverage containers are molded can be more effectively used.
Since the injection molding station simultaneously injection molds M×N preforms, the number of preforms for blow molding time can be secured to improve the efficiency in the molding cycle.
At the first delivering section, M rows of preforms are preferably delivered to the cooling station after the row pitch between M rows has been changed. By additionally cooling the preforms at the cooling station, the temperature in the injection molded preforms can be uniformly lowered so that the influence of the temperature control at the re-heating step will be increased to improve the stability on molding.
By heating the preforms cooled by the cooling station at the heating station in their inverted state, the necks of the preforms as well as the carrying members supporting the preforms in their inverted state will not be excessively heated. This can reliably prevent any deformation of the preform necks and the adverse effects of heat to the carrying members. In the cooling and heating stations, it is preferred that the preforms are rotated about their longitudinal axes by a rotation mechanism to cool and heat the preforms uniformly around their circumferences.
The inverted preforms are delivered from the second receiving secti

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