EP0100686A2 - Verfahren und Vorrichtung zum Konditionieren von Materialien zur Verpackung - Google Patents

Verfahren und Vorrichtung zum Konditionieren von Materialien zur Verpackung Download PDF

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Publication number
EP0100686A2
EP0100686A2 EP83304477A EP83304477A EP0100686A2 EP 0100686 A2 EP0100686 A2 EP 0100686A2 EP 83304477 A EP83304477 A EP 83304477A EP 83304477 A EP83304477 A EP 83304477A EP 0100686 A2 EP0100686 A2 EP 0100686A2
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EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
conditioning
atmosphere
packing
moisture regain
means comprise
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Withdrawn
Application number
EP83304477A
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English (en)
French (fr)
Other versions
EP0100686A3 (de
Inventor
Reginald David Wilson
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
Individual
Original Assignee
Individual
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Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by Individual filed Critical Individual
Publication of EP0100686A2 publication Critical patent/EP0100686A2/de
Publication of EP0100686A3 publication Critical patent/EP0100686A3/de
Withdrawn legal-status Critical Current

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    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
    • B65B—MACHINES, APPARATUS OR DEVICES FOR, OR METHODS OF, PACKAGING ARTICLES OR MATERIALS; UNPACKING
    • B65B25/00—Packaging other articles presenting special problems
    • B65B25/20—Packaging garments, e.g. socks, stockings, shirts
    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
    • B65B—MACHINES, APPARATUS OR DEVICES FOR, OR METHODS OF, PACKAGING ARTICLES OR MATERIALS; UNPACKING
    • B65B31/00—Packaging articles or materials under special atmospheric or gaseous conditions; Adding propellants to aerosol containers

Definitions

  • This invention relates to methods and apparatus for conditioning materials for packing by adjusting the moisture regain.
  • One form of apparatus proposed for such treatment includes a conditioning tunnel with a conveyor for carrying garments through the tunnel, in which the atmosphere is maintained in different zones at different levels of relative humidity and temperature, the last-encountered zone being held at or not much above ambient temperature.
  • the length of the tunnel and the speed of the conveyor are chosen so that passage through the tunnel takes only a few hours. The garments spend long enough, however, in the last-encountered zone so as to ensure - following the treatment in the earlier stage - that they are in equilibrium with the atmosphere in that zone no matter what the nature of the garments, their initial moisture regain or the ambient conditions.
  • the present invention provides methods and apparatus for conditioning materials for packing which overcome these problems.
  • the invention comprises a method for conditioning materials for packing by adjusting the moisture regain, comprising the step of treating the material with a conditioning atmosphere while measuring the moisture regain of the material, and terminating said treatment when a predetermined moisture regain is attained.
  • the conditioning atmosphere may comprise humidity - and/or temperature - adjusted air, and is preferably passed through an enclosure for the material to be conditioned, rather than passing the material through a tunnel or the like.
  • the conditioning atmosphere is preferably circulated, rather than passed straight to exhaust, to save energy, and may be continually processed to vary or maintain its adjustment - for example, it may be desired that treatment be carried out from beginning to end with air at 20°C and 5% RH, so that between passes through the enclosure, the recirculating air would be adjusted to these conditions; on the other hand, it may be desired to increase the temperature of the air while maintaining a low humididy level during a first part of the process, and then reduce the temperature, still under low humidity conditions, during a later part of the process.
  • the circulated conditioning atmosphere may be passed through a dehumidifier and/or a heater, which may be under appropriate manual or automatic control.
  • the articles are desirably transferred to a packing room in which the atmosphere is such that it is in equilibrium with the articles.
  • Articles so treated may be vacuum packed, or even compression packed, as will be hereinafter described.
  • the invention also comprises apparatus for conditioning material by adjusting the moisture regain comprising conditioning means for treating the material with a conditioning atmosphere, and moisture regain measuring means connected to control means adapted for terminating said treatment when a predetermined mositure regain is attained.
  • Said conditioning means may comprise an enclosure for said material through which said conditioning atmosphere is passed.
  • the enclosure may have rail or shelving means for supporting articles of said material, and inlet and outlet means for said conditioning atmosphere.
  • Baffle means may be provided if necessary to ensure that the by-pass ratio - the fraction of air that passes through without usefully contacting the material - is as low as possible.
  • Dehumidifying means comprised in said apparatus may comprise a condenser, and may comprise a rotary wheel type condenser which can also supply heat to increase or maintain the temperature of the conditioning atmosphere.
  • the dehumidifying means may comprise absorption means, such as a vessel in which the atmosphere is passed in contact with silica gel or like moisture absorbing means. This could be of interest where the provision of power for condensers is a problem.
  • Said moisture regain measuring means may comprise temperature measuring means measuring the temperature of the material and the temperature of the conditioning atmosphere, and means evaluating the moisture regain of the material from the two temperature measurements.
  • Said control means may comprise indicating means for indicating that the treatment can be terminated. The control means may, however, automatically terminate said treatment and deliver the treated material into a conditioned packing room.
  • the enclosure 11 has shelving 18 for supporting articles of the material to be processed. Only four shelves are shown, defining a labyrinthine path through the enclosure 11 from the inlet 12 to the outlet 13 so that the conditioning atmosphere is forced to encounter the entire shelf area of the enclosure. This is assisted by baffles 19 at the inlet, the objects being to ensure that no, or as little as possible, conditioning air passes through the enclosure without usefully encountering the material and also to ensure that there are no zones where the air is static or relatively so.
  • the shelving 18 is preferably of mesh or perforated construction so that conditioning atmosphere can penetrate the material from below as well as above. It may, of course, for some applications, notably for the conditioning of suits or jackets or dresses for packing, be preferred to substitute rails for hangers.
  • the apparatus also includes moisture regain measuring means comprising a first, "dry bulb” thermometer 21 located near the inlet 11 and three “wet bulb” thermometers 22a, 22b, 22c that are on flexible leads so that they can be placed in contact with articles on the shelving 18.
  • the thermometers can be of any convenient kind giving a temperature dependent electrical signal, for example resistance thermometers, thermocouples or thermistors. (It is of course to be understood that the expression “ wet bulb” as used above does not mean that the thermometer is actually provided with a wick, rather that the material itself, being subject to evaporation of its moisture content, acts in similar fashion to the wick of a wet bulb thermometer.)
  • thermometers 22a, 22b, 22c will record a lower temperature than the thermometer 21.
  • the relationship between the temperatures will in general be fairly complex, and will depend on the relative humidity and the temperature of the conditioning atmosphere entering at the inlet 12, the moisture regain of the material and the nature of the material. It will usually be arranged, however, that even though heat is used to accelerate the drying process, the temperature of the conditioning atmosphere is reduced to ambient by the end of the treatment, which effectively eliminates one variable.
  • the fact that the conditioning atmosphere, rather than the material to be treated, is passed through the enclosure means that relatively small enclosures can be constructed which are appropriate to the treatment of small to medium size batches of articles which articles can therefore be of a kind for any one charge, so that they will all be processed in the same time and this time will not be prolonged by having to meet the requirements of other articles being processed at the same time which may have a higher initial moisture regain or which may be slower-drying. This is not, of course, to say that mixtures of articles cannot be processed by the present method or in the apparatus herein described.
  • thermometers are in any event, evenwhen processing only one kind of material or article at a time, provided as a check to see that conditioning is proceeding uniformly from position to position in the enclosure.
  • thermometers 21 and 22a, 22b and 22c are connected to control means 23 which can give an alarm when all three material-sensing thermometers 22a, 22b and 22c indicate temperatures within a desired level with respect to the temperature read by thermometer 21, or when the average of the three material temperatures is within such a desired level.
  • control means 23 can also give an alarm if the thermometers 22a, 22b and 22c detect a significant departure from uniform or expected processing conditions.
  • control means 23 can also be arranged, if desired, actually to terminate the process on completion and even to deliver the conditioned material into a conditioned packing room.
  • the shelving might be separable from the enclosure so that it can be loaded outside the enclosure, while a conditioning operation is in progress on material on another shelving unit, and unloaded in the same way.
  • a convenient arrangement would be to have the enclosure actually within or adjoining a packing room.
  • the control means 23 (or some quite separate control means - but if, for example, a microprocessor is used, the total control function can easily be integrated in one unit) can also control the heating/dehumidifying regime. Although one regime could be specified which would be suitable for all different types of material likely to be encountered, it is nevertheless more satisfactory to tailor the regime to the actual material being processed, and this is a relatively simple thing to do with a microprocessor.
  • a desirable regime for conditioning textile articles for packaging begins with an initial reduction of the moisture content of the conditioning atmosphere. Once this has fallen below ambient, temperature can be increased to reduce the relative humidity and accelerate the rate of removal of moisture. Before the end of the process, however, temperature is again brought down to ambient or not much above ambient. In this way, the articles are brought down to a desired low moisture regain so that they will not suffer permanent creasing during storage after packing, and the temperature during the conditioning step is only raised after the moisture content of the material has been reduced somewhat so that the tendency of creases present during conditioning to persist after conditioning is not intensified by the heating.
  • the desired combination of moisture regain and temperature for one fabric will be different from that for another and the optimum regime for any particular material can be determined experimentally starting from known practice in the art of conditioning for packing.
  • FIG. 2 shows a more comprehensive conditioning plant in which a conditioning enclosure 31 and a packaging room 32 are supplied with conditioning atmosphere from a dehumidifying/heating arrangement including a blower 33 with a filter 34 and a cooling coil 35 which effects some dehumidifying by condensation. Further dehumidifying, and some heating, are effected by a rotary wheel dehumidifier 36. Further heating is supplied by a battery of electric resistance heaters 37 and/or further dehumidification by a second cooling coil 38. A volume damper 39 controls the flow into the enclosure 31.
  • the packaging room 32 is also supplied with a mixture of cooled and dehumidified atmosphere, and heated and further dehumidified atmosphere by ducts 41, 42 under the control of volume dampers 41a, 42a, brought together in a mixing box 43.
  • the atmosphere in the packaging room can be maintained so as to be in equilibrium, or substantially so, with the conditioned material supplied from the enclosure, so that regardless of the time spent in the packaging room, the conditioned material does not go out of, or too far out of, condition.
  • Atmosphere discharged from the enclosure 31 can be recycled through a second blower 44, a second electric heating battery 45 and the heat exchanger of the rotary wheel dehumidifier 36. This recycled atmosphere is ducted back to the blower 33 via a volume damper 46. Likewise, return atmosphere from the packaging room 32 can also be recirculated, though it will not be necessary to reprocess this further before passing it back to the blower 33. Excess atmosphere from that discharged from the enclosure 31 and the packaging room 32 is discharged from the system under the control of further volume dampers 47.
  • Heat can be recovered from the chiller 40 that supplies the cooling coils 35, 38 with coolant medium in condensers 48, 49 and added to the circulating atmosphere
  • thermometers 21 and 22a, 22b and 22c can control the heating batteries, cooling coils, rotary wheel- dehumidifier, as well as the various volume dampers according to a prearranged program as above described.
  • cooling coils or dehumidifiers that work by condensation can be replaced by absorption-type dehumidifiers. By passing heated air through them, they may be stripped of moisture they have picked up from the atmosphere fed into the conditioning enclosure.
  • Conditioning in apparatus and by methods as above described is found to be effective not only in regular packaging and vacuum packaging of textile articles, but even in compression packaging in which much greater creasing forces are applied than in vacuum packaging (where the maximum pressure is atmospheric pressure).

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
  • Chemical & Material Sciences (AREA)
  • Dispersion Chemistry (AREA)
  • Drying Of Solid Materials (AREA)
  • Vaporization, Distillation, Condensation, Sublimation, And Cold Traps (AREA)
EP83304477A 1982-08-04 1983-08-03 Verfahren und Vorrichtung zum Konditionieren von Materialien zur Verpackung Withdrawn EP0100686A3 (de)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB8222541 1982-08-04
GB8222541 1982-08-04

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
EP0100686A2 true EP0100686A2 (de) 1984-02-15
EP0100686A3 EP0100686A3 (de) 1985-11-27

Family

ID=10532117

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
EP83304477A Withdrawn EP0100686A3 (de) 1982-08-04 1983-08-03 Verfahren und Vorrichtung zum Konditionieren von Materialien zur Verpackung

Country Status (3)

Country Link
EP (1) EP0100686A3 (de)
GB (1) GB2125456A (de)
ZA (1) ZA835714B (de)

Cited By (3)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
FR2653407A1 (fr) * 1989-10-25 1991-04-26 Mathis Alain Procede de protection d'un objet par deshydratation d'air a circulation forcee et dispositif de deshydratation pour la mise en óoeuvre du procede.
WO1994005844A1 (en) * 1992-08-29 1994-03-17 De Montfort University Adjusting moisture regain
WO1998038372A1 (en) * 1997-02-28 1998-09-03 Qualpak U.K. Limited Apparatus for conditioning of commodities for vacuum packing

Families Citing this family (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
ES2117421T3 (es) * 1994-05-18 1998-08-01 Commw Scient Ind Res Org Acondicionamiento de tejidos textiles.

Family Cites Families (17)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
US2557605A (en) * 1948-04-16 1951-06-19 Sr John Kohut Material treating apparatus having air conditioning means
FR1217647A (fr) * 1958-04-15 1960-05-04 Appareil ménager à sécher le linge
CH375688A (fr) * 1962-01-04 1964-03-15 Techmatic S A Séchoir à linge
BE632426A (de) * 1962-05-16
US3257739A (en) * 1963-08-28 1966-06-28 Proctor & Schwartz Inc Drying garments
US3304620A (en) * 1963-10-10 1967-02-21 Du Pont Process for drying laundered garments of polyester fibers
GB1133098A (en) * 1964-11-20 1968-11-06 John Edward Randell Improvements in and relating to drying apparatus
GB1230570A (de) * 1967-10-21 1971-05-05
FR1562056A (de) * 1968-01-22 1969-04-04
GB1209405A (en) * 1968-12-04 1970-10-21 Initial Services Ltd Laundry drying apparatus
DE2052440B2 (de) * 1970-10-26 1977-04-07 Obermaier & Cie, 6730 Neustadt Verfahren zum konditionieren von textilgut
SE383132B (sv) * 1974-07-05 1976-03-01 Svenska Textilforskningsinst Forfarande for forbehandling, forpackning, forvaring och efterbehandling av en produkt av textilmaterial
SE389314B (sv) * 1975-03-21 1976-11-01 Tex Innovation Ab Evakueringsanordning.
CA1078726A (en) * 1976-11-01 1980-06-03 Tex Innovation Ab Horizontal packaging apparatus
GB1597243A (en) * 1977-11-01 1981-09-03 Shishoo R L Method of treating fibrous materials
CA1199569A (en) * 1981-02-26 1986-01-21 Alan H. Miller Method and apparatus for packaging a compressible textile product and the resulting package
GB2124581A (en) * 1982-08-04 1984-02-22 Reginald David Wilson Packaging textile articles

Cited By (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
FR2653407A1 (fr) * 1989-10-25 1991-04-26 Mathis Alain Procede de protection d'un objet par deshydratation d'air a circulation forcee et dispositif de deshydratation pour la mise en óoeuvre du procede.
WO1994005844A1 (en) * 1992-08-29 1994-03-17 De Montfort University Adjusting moisture regain
WO1998038372A1 (en) * 1997-02-28 1998-09-03 Qualpak U.K. Limited Apparatus for conditioning of commodities for vacuum packing
AU727883B2 (en) * 1997-02-28 2001-01-04 Qualpak U.K. Limited Apparatus for conditioning of commodities for vacuum packing
US6185835B1 (en) 1997-02-28 2001-02-13 Qualpak Uk Limited Apparatus for conditioning of commodities for vacuum packing

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
EP0100686A3 (de) 1985-11-27
GB8320908D0 (en) 1983-09-07
ZA835714B (en) 1984-07-25
GB2125456A (en) 1984-03-07

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