Package making – Apparatus for contraction of cover by stretching or shrinking – By heat shrinking
Patent
1996-11-08
1998-07-28
Johnson, Linda
Package making
Apparatus for contraction of cover by stretching or shrinking
By heat shrinking
53 54, B65B 5302, B65B 5700
Patent
active
057848645
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a machine for overwrapping baggage of users of various means of transport and in particular of air-transport passengers.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Baggage, such as rigid or supple suitcases, bags, golf bags, pairs of skis, etc . . . of passengers using means of transport and in particular air transport, often undergoes damage during transport, resulting from bumps, friction or bad weather. Furthermore, even if it is provided with "safety" locks, it may be forced during handling and the owners of baggage can but ascertain the theft that they have suffered when recovering their baggage. Finally, the baggage may be opened for terrorist purposes, for installing an explosive device therein.
To overcome these drawbacks, automatic overwrapping machines have already been envisaged, comprising an upstream packing section in which each piece of baggage displaced on a conveyor belt is enveloped in a film of heat-shrinkable plastics material, and a downstream section comprising an oven for heat-shrinking, through which each piece of baggage, provided with its heat-shrinkable envelope, passes. The baggage leaves at the exit of the heat-shrinking oven, protected by an envelope of shrunk plastics material. Such overwrapping machines are described for example in U.S. Pat. No. 3,815,313, WO 87/00144 and FR-A-2 680 154.
Patent FR-A-2 696 709 also discloses an installation and a process for rendering collective baggage transport safe. This installation comprises a baggage-transporting conveyor disposed so that the baggage is transported entirely in a zone inaccessible to unauthorized persons. Such an installation further comprises means for monitoring the presence of metal objects as well as a station for sealing the monitored baggage by means of a heat-shrinkable film. It is here question of an installation comprising a plurality of work stations possibly disposed in different rooms, such an installation not making it possible to eject baggage which has been detected as suspect.
The present invention relates to improvements in these types of overwrapping machines so as to enable them to make both a safety check and an automatic evacuation of suspect baggage.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention thus has for its object a machine for overwrapping baggage of users of any mode of transport and in particular air transport, successively comprising, upstream to downstream, a baggage arrival station comprising an upstream entry conveyor on which the baggage to be wrapped is placed flat, and a security control apparatus disposed so as to make a visual check of the interior of each piece of baggage placed flat on the upstream conveyor, a station for forming a protective tubular enclosure, made of shrinkable thermoplastics material, around each piece of baggage, comprising an intermediate enclosing conveyor, and a tunnel oven for shrinking, through which a downstream conveyor extends, the endless conveyors extending horizontally and being aligned and driven in the same direction, so as to obtain at the exit of the oven, further to the shrinking of the plastics material, fully overwrapped baggage, characterized in that it comprises a common housing isolating from the outside all the elements constituting the overwrapping machine and the security control apparatus and ejection means which make it possible, when a piece of baggage is indicated by the security control apparatus as being suspect, to stop advance of said baggage within the enclosure and to eject it immediately after detection and before the baggage is admitted in the station forming the protective enclosure.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
A form of embodiment of the present invention will be described hereinafter by way of non-limiting example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
FIGS. 1 and 2 are schematic views in vertical and longitudinal section of a machine for automatically overwrapping passenger baggage according to the invention, respectively during various stages of
REFERENCES:
patent: 3605283 (1971-09-01), Zelnick et al.
patent: 4984409 (1991-01-01), Focke
Johnson Linda
Probag S.A.
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