AU7216901A

AU7216901A - Easy-open bulk container

Info

Publication number: AU7216901A
Application number: AU72169/01A
Authority: AU
Inventors: Stephen Charles Howison
Original assignee: Visy Textiles Pty Ltd
Current assignee: Bulk Handling Australia Pty Ltd
Priority date: 2000-09-18
Filing date: 2001-09-18
Publication date: 2002-04-11

Description

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PATENTS ACT 1990 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION STANDARD PATENT "Easy-Open Bulk Container" The following statement is a full description of this invention, including the best method of performning it known to me: 2 EASY-OPEN BULK CONTAINER Field of the Invention This invention relates to bulk containers and in a particular non-limiting aspect relates to easy-open containers for transport of bulk materials for manufacture of photographic materials.

Background of the Invention There are many types of containers available on the market for transportation and storage of bulk flowable or fluid materials. Whilst many are quite effective in holding and 15 containing flowable product materials, the weight and bulk of such containers can make it difficult to remove the product material in a quick and easy fashion. This is particularly the case where the materials are in a gel-like or paste-like state and/or with photographic chemicals where the chemicals contained in the bulk container cannot be exposed to light for obvious reasons. In this case there is a need to be able to readily dump the material S "o 20 from the bulk container in the dark under conditions which do not require skilful manipulation.

does not involve actions which are likely to lead to any contaminant being introduced into 25 the product material. For example, contaminants may be introduced into the contained material if it is necessary to break the container or slash a liner with a knife to obtain access to the bulk material. The slashing step can result in pieces of liner, or fibres from the outer casing, becoming mixed with the bulk material.

Some types of containers available for transportation and storage of bulk flowable materials are known generally as Flexible Intermediate Bulk Containers (FIBCs). These are essentially large bags made from woven fabrics material. The fabric may be coated to 3 form a laminated structure. An FIBC may comprise an outer casing plus a liner which is fitted within the outer casing. FIBC's are generally provided with handles in the form of fabric loops for lifting of the containers.

Disclosure of the Invention The invention provides in one aspect a bulk container comprising an outer casing having side walls and an openable base, and a liner for holding bulk flowable material disposed in the outer casing, wherein the liner is constructed so that when said base is opened the weight of the bulk material ruptures or otherwise opens the liner to enable the bulk material to flow out of the bulk container The outer casing may be sewn from a woven material (fabric). It may be woven from high density polyethylene (HDPE). It may be laminated on one or both sides. It may be laminated with low density polyethylene (LDPE).

The outer casing may be any suitable shape. However, in most circumstances it is anticipated that the outer casing will have a generally square, rectangular or circular cross 20 section. Thus, the openable base will in many instances be square or rectangular.

0*e* ooee The outer casing may be fitted with one or more handles. Typically there may be four handles in the form of straps. The straps may be attached to the side walls. They may straddle adjacent side walls across edge seams joining the side walls.

Suitably, the openable base may include one or more flaps. The flap or flaps may open downwardly from the base when the base is opened. The flaps may be triangular and may be truncated at the centre of the base. Suitably there may be four or eight triangular flaps comprising the base.

When the base is closed, the narrow ends of the triangular flaps may be joined together.

They may be joined together by a rope, clip, ring or equivalent joining device.

Where a rope or ring is used, the rope or ring may pass through loop means formed at or near the narrow end of each of the flaps.

The loop means may be formed by turning the narrow end of a flap back upon the flap to form a loop. The turned back ends may be secured to the flap by any suitable means such as welding or stitching. Reinforcement may be provided to increase the strength of the loop means constructed in this fashion. For example an extra layer of casing material may be folded in with the loop means.

The rope may be arranged to pass through the loop means to form a circular rope section.

The circular rope section may be joined at its ends by a clip or pin.

The clipor pin may be one which can simply be slipped into loops provided at each end of the rope to join the rope together. Thus, the rope can easily be released and the base of the container opened by pulling the clip or pin away from the rope. By disconnecting the rope ,*ends in this fashion, the weight of the bulk material in the container pushing down upon the S. base can cause the rope to slip out of the loop means and the base to open.

As a base closed in this fashion may still be left with a generally circular opening in the base, the base may incorporate a flap to cover the circular opening.

Thus, in a particular aspect, the base may comprise a sheet of material formed with four .ooo.i S slits dividing the base into four triangular sections and a flap sewn onto the base. This base 25 may be sewn onto the side walls forming the outer casing of the container. The flap may be sewn onto the inside face of the base.

The liner may be formed of a film material. It may comprise polyethylene. It may be loaded with light blocking additives. For example it may be loaded with carbon black.

The liner may be extruded in the form of a continuous tube. The continuous tube may be folded so as to create fins at the edges of the liner. Suitably four such fins may be created.

The fins may be formed by folding the liner upon itself and joining the liner to itself near the region where it is folded upon itself. Joining may be by any suitable means such as welding or stitching.

During construction of the bulk container, the fins of the liner may be joined to the edges of the outer casing. They may be sandwiched between the sides of the outer casing. In such an instance, the four layer sandwich formed in this fashion may be stitched together to form the edge seam of the outer casing.

The bottom end of the liner may be closed by folding the bottom end of the liner flat and turning it back upon itself. A frangible tape may be used to hold the liner folded back upon itself in place. By constructing the liner in this fashion, when the weight of the bulk material in the container bears down upon the bottom of the liner when the base of the container is opened, the weight of the bulk material ruptures the tape to allow the liner to unfold and thus the bulk material to fall out through the bottom of the container.

o• In one alternative construction, the bottom of the liner can be sealed in any suitable fashion such as by gluing or welding. The gluing or welding may rupture under the weight of the 20 bulk material when the base is opened.

SIn another alternative construction the material of the liner may be chosen or treated so that it is so weak at the bottom portion of the liner that the weight of the bulk material will rupture it. It may include weakening to ensure that rupture occurs. Weakening may be in 25 the form of score lines or slits.

In another alternative, the bottom of the liner may be folded in such a fashion that it will hold the bulk material provided the base of the container is closed. When the base of the container is opened, the liner may simply unfold without requiring any rupture to allow the bulk material to flow out of an unfolded open end of the liner.

In another aspect the invention proves a method of transporting a light sensitive bulk material comprising loading said material into a container as described above, packing said container into a heavy duty corrugated cardboard box, transporting said container and box to its destination, removing said container from the box, supporting the container above its discharge point, opening the base of the container and allowing the liner to open and the bulk material to flow out of the container.

Brief Description of the Drawings Figure 1 is an isometric view of a container according to one embodiment of the invention, shown opened after discharge; its liner has been deleted from the view for clarity; Figure 2 shows a horizontal cross section of a liner for use with the container shown in Figure 1; Figure 3 shows a side on view of a liner folded flat; Figure 4 is a fragmentary sectional view of an edge seam of a bulk container according to the invention; Figure 5 shows an upwardly looking view of the base of a closed container, according to the invention, together with associated closure means; and 20 Figure 6 shows the release mechanism for the base illustrated in Figure Detailed Description of the Preferred Embodiments r r S• Referring to the Figures, there is shown an outer casing 12 forming part of a container 25 constructed in accordance with the invention. The outer casing is formed of woven HDPE material which has been laminated on both sides with LDPE. It includes four side walls 14 joined at vertical seamed edges 15. The edges 15 are seamed by stitching 50, shown particularly in Figure 4, in a manner which will be described in more detail hereinafter.

A base 20 is sewn into the bottom of the side walls 14. It comprises four generally triangular flaps 16 formed by slits 22, shown in Figure 5, cut in a rectangular sheet of material of the same type as the material forming the side walls. A rectangular cover flap 18 is sewn at one edge onto the base 20 to close off the gaps otherwise left in the base when the flaps 16 are held together across the base 20. The bottom of the casing 12 thus is double layered with the cover flap 18 inside the base As can be seen from Figure 5, the flaps 16 include fold over portions 26 which also fold over reinforcement panels 28. Both the fold over portions 26 and reinforcement panels 28 are joined to the main body of the triangular flaps 16 by any suitable means such as stitching 29 or welding to form a sleeve or loop 27 through which a rope 32 may be threaded.

In Figure 1 the rope 32 has been removed by a user in order for the bag to open but in Figure 5 it has been shown separately for clarity of the drawings. The rope 32 used in this preferred embodiment has its ends joined by a knot 35 to form a loop before it is threaded through the four fabric sleeves (loops) 27 and fastened as described hereunder to hold the flapstogether.

The loop of rope 32 is threaded through three of the four sleeves 27 in the flaps 16. The V. fourth sleeve, identified as 31 in the Figures, has a hole 34 punched therein and each loopend 33 of the rope 32 is pushed half way through the sleeve 31 and then outwards through 20 the hole 34. The loop-ends 33 are then joined by the R-clip 38 as shown in more detail in Figure 6. The R-clip is bent to shape from heavy gauge steel wire.

S For clarity in Figure 6, the innermost layer of material shown is the flap 16 while the oo ooi subsequent layers being the cover flap 18 and the liner 40 have been omitted. Figure 6 is 25 shown upside down to its orientation when the container is in use.

The R-clip 38 functions as a release pin. The mechanism for opening the container may involve pulling the R-clip 38 either directly or remotely by a cord or rope to open the base.

Preferably a pull-cord 39 is secured (by a knot 41) through the looped end of the R-clip so that the R-clip may be pulled out from a remote point and thus release the loop-ends 33 from each other. It is so simple that it can readily and safely be done in darkroom conditions.

8 The pull-cord 39 for the R-clip may be tied or otherwise joined to the looped rope 32, preferably at the centre of the looped rope 32, in order to facilitate recovery of the rope 32, particularly in darkroom conditions. Alternatively, the rope 32 may be knotted or otherwise retained to one of the flaps 16, preferably the flap opposite loop 31.

Referring to Figure 2, the liner 40 shown is in the form of an extruded tube of polyethylene 42 loaded with carbon black which acts as a light blocking agent. The tube has been folded along four folds 44 to assume an H-shaped configuration. Joins 48, which may comprise a seam of stitching or heat sealing are provided to form fins 46 at the tips of the H.

As can be seen in Figure 4, at the edges 15 the fins 46 are sandwiched between the fabric forming the side walls 14 of the outer casing 12 to form a four layer construction. The seamed edge 15 is held together by the join 50 which suitably takes the form of stitching.

It is noted that the stitching 50 to some extent duplicates the effect of the stitching or welding 48 in the liner and as such, it is possible to do away with the stitching or welding 48 if this is more convenient for a particular manufacturing process and end use application.

S: Referring to Figure 3, it can be seen that the bottom end of the liner 40 is closed off simply by folding it back upon itself at the base fold 52 and taping the bent over end back down .o upon the liner with an adhesive tape 54. The adhesive tape is one which can be readily ruptured when the weight of the bulk material in the liner bears down upon the bottom of the liner when the base of the container is opened. It is preferred to have the taped closure 25 fail by tearing of the tape, as distinct from failure of the adhesive, because there is less likelihood of portions of tape becoming dislodged and falling into the material being discharged.

It can be seen that the container can readily be filled by closing off the base of the liner and outer casing in the manners described, putting the liner into the outer casing if not already sewn in, filling the liner and closing off the top end. The lifting loops 36 provide handles to make it easy to lift the container.

In a preferred form of composite container, the container 10 as described above is placed into a rigid box made from timber or, more preferably, heavy duty corrugated cardboard.

The container 10 substantially fills the box which is closed by fold-over flaps at the top.

The box provides additional physical protection against puncturing, inadvertent release of the clip securing the rope 32, and also improved resistance to light penetration.

It is to be understood that the word comprising as used throughout the specification is to be interpreted in its inclusive form ie. use of the word comprising does not exclude the addition of other elements.

It is to be understood that various modifications of and/or additions to the invention can be made without departing from the basic nature of the invention. These modifications and/or additions are therefore considered to fall within the scope of the invention.

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Claims

1. A bulk container comprising an outer casing having side walls and an openable base, and a liner for holding bulk flowable material disposed in the outer casing, wherein the liner is constructed so that when said base is opened the weight of the bulk material ruptures or otherwise opens the liner to enable the bulk material to flow out of the bulk container.

2. A container according to claim 1 wherein the outer casing is sewn from a woven fabric.

3. A container according to claim 1 or 2 wherein the openable base may include one or more flaps.

4. A container according to claim 3 wherein the flap or flaps open downwardly from the base when the base is opened. A container according to claim 3 or 4 wherein the flaps are of a shape which is 20 generally triangular but truncated at the centre of the base. 9

6. A container according to claim 5 wherein the base comprises four or eight generally triangular flaps. 25 7. A container according to claim 5 or 6 wherein, when the base is closed, the narrow ends of the triangular flaps may be joined together.

8. A container according to claim 7 wherein the narrow ends of the triangular flaps are joined together by a rope or ring.

9. A container according to claim 8 wherein the rope or ring passes through a loop means formed at or near the narrow end of each of the flaps. 11 A container according to claim 9 wherein each said loop means is formed by turning the narrow end of the respective flap back upon the flap to form a loop. 11 A container according to claim 9 or 10 wherein a rope is arranged to pass through each said loop means to form a circular rope section.

12. A container according to claim 11 wherein a clip or pin is slipped into loops provided at each end of the rope to join the rope together.

13. A container according to claim 12 wherein the rope may be released, and the base of the container opened, by pulling the clip or pin away from the rope.

14. A container according to claim 13 wherein the weight of the bulk material in the container pushing down upon the base causes the rope to slip out of the loop means and the base to open. go A container according to any one of claims 10 to 14 wherein a generally circular opening is left in the base by the turned back ends and the base incorporates a flap to cover 20 that opening.

16. A container according to any one of claims 6 to 15 wherein the base comprises a sheet of material formed with four slits dividing the base into four triangular sections and a flap sewn onto the base. So.:

17. A container according to claim 16 wherein the base is sewn onto the side walls forming the outer casing of the container.

18. A container according to any one of claims 15 to 17 wherein the flap is sewn onto the inside face of the base. 12

19. A container according to any one of the previous claims wherein the liner is formed of a film material. A container according to claim 19 wherein the film material is loaded with light blocking additives.

21. A container according to any one of the previous claims wherein the liner is extruded in the form of a continuous tube and is then folded so as to create fins and the fins are joined to edges of the outer casing.

22. A container according to claim 21 wherein the fins are sandwiched between the edges of the sides of the outer casing and stitched into the edge seam of the outer casing.

23. A container according to any one of the previous claims wherein the bottom end of sthe liner is closed by folding said bottom end of the liner flat and turning it back upon itself.

24. A container according to claim 23 wherein a frangible tape is used to hold the liner folded back upon itself such that when the weight of the bulk material in the container 20 bears down upon the bottom of the liner when the base of the container is opened, the weight of the bulk material ruptures the tape to allow the liner to fold and thus the bulk material to fall out through the bottom of the container.

25. A container according to any one of claims 1 to 23 wherein the bottom of the liner 25 is sealed by gluing or welding and the gluing or welding ruptures under the weight of the bulk material when the base of the container is opened.

26. A container according to any one of claims 1 to 23 wherein the liner is chosen or treated so that it is so weak at the bottom portion of the liner that the weight of the bulk material ruptures it when the base of the container is opened. 13

27. A container according to any one of claims 1 to 23 wherein the bottom the liner is folded in such a fashion that it will hold the bulk material while the base of the container is closed but when the base of the container is opened, the liner unfolds without requiring any rupture to allow the bulk material to flow out of the unfolded open end of the liner.

28. A container as described in this specification with reference to the drawings.

29. A composite container comprising a container according to any one of the previous claims packed inside a corrugated cardboard box. A method of transporting a light sensitive bulk material comprising loading said material into a container according to any one of claims 1 to 29, packing said container into a heavy duty corrugated cardboard box, transporting said container and box to its destination, removing said container from the box, supporting the container above its o 15 discharge point, opening the base of the container and allowing the liner to open and the bulk material to flow out of the container.

31. A method of transporting and unloading a bulk material as described in this specification with reference to the drawings. Dated this 18th day of September 2001 Visy Textiles Pty Ltd by their patent attorneys Morcom Pernat