EP0118718B1

EP0118718B1 - Packing container for goods of parallelepiped configuration

Info

Publication number: EP0118718B1
Application number: EP84101014A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Piero Durazzani
Original assignee: Industrie Zanussi SpA
Current assignee: OFFERTA DI LICENZA AL PUBBLICO
Priority date: 1983-03-07
Filing date: 1984-02-01
Publication date: 1987-07-15
Also published as: EP0118718A3; IT8334011V0; EP0118718A2; ATE28312T1; DE3464745D1

Abstract

A packing container for goods of parallelpiped configuration, particularly for electric household applicances such as laundry washign machines, dishwaters and the like, is formed of at least one sheet (9) of a relatively rigid material and a plurality of protective spacers for protecting the corners and edges of the packed appliance (8). According to the invention, the sheet (9) is made of an extruded plastic material of cellular structure (14) and the protective spacers are formed integrally with the sheet in the form of bars (10, 11, 12, 13) extending over the full width of the sheet transversely of its longitudinal axis. Folding zones (29) divide the sheet into a plurality of bottom, top and sidewall panels to by folded around an appliance to be packed.

Description

The present invention relates to a packing container for goods of parallelepiped configuration, particularly electric household appliances such as laundry washing machines, dishwashers and similar apparatus.
It is known that at the end of the manufacturing process the finished electric household appliances are packed in order to give them the necessary protection during the subsequent storage and shipping phases.
A generally accepted packing system employs a plurality of particularly shaped cardboard or polystyrene bodies which are manually applied to the corners and the top and bottom faces of the housing of the household appliances.
The housing of the household appliance including the manually applied protective bodies are subsequently enveloped in a cardboard casing. or in a heat-shrinkable polyethylene sheet.
In these systems, the packing assembly consists of a relatively great number of components of different shapes and made of different materials requiring a variety of manufacturing technologies and a great number of manual operations, particularly for singly applying the various protective bodies to the housing of the electric household appliance.
If, moreover, a heat-shrinkable sheet envelope is employed, the packing process is undesirably . delayed, as it involves an enveloping stap and the subsequent passage through an oven for heat- shrinking the envelope about the package.
Also known are packing containers formed of a single prefolded cardboard sheet and a plurality of protective bodies or spacers made of cardboard or polystyrene bonded to said sheet. This type of packing container is also disadvantageous, as it requires numerous operations for bonding or stapling the protective spacers to the surface of the cardboard sheet.
In addition to the above, it must not be forgotten that such packing containers made of cardboard are not very sturdy, so that unevenly .distributed loads applied to their surfaces (for example during storage) may result in irregular and progressive deformation, leading to serious problems. particularly with respect to the utilization of veilical storage spaces. The same holds true in the case of packing containers made of polystyrene.
It is thus evident that the degradability of the cardboard and the heterogeneity of the packing container structure limit the protection afforded to the household appliance, particularly in the case of repeated storage and shipping along the distribution network from the manufacturer to the distributor and finally to the customer, and in addition exclude the possibility of the packing container being. re-used by the distributor or the customer.
It would therefore be desirable, and is in fact an object of the present invention to provide a packing container composed of the smallest possible number of parts and offering the greatest convenience in use so as to simplify and rationalize the packing process.
Another object of the invention is the provision of a packing container of the type set forth above, which is of highly robust construction so as to reliably ensure the protection of the electric household appliance during storage and shipping, and to additionally include the possibility of the packing container being re-used by the distributor or the final customer.
These objects are attained according to the invention in a packing container for goods of parallelepiped configuration, particularly electric household appliances, comprising at least one sheet of a pre-shaped material adapted to be folded so as to envelop an electric household appliance with the interposition of angular protection elements.
According to the invention, a packing container of this type is characterized in that the sheet of a pre-shaped material is made of an extruded plastic material having a cellular structure, and in that the angular protection elements are integrally formed with the sheet.
The characteristics and advantages of the invention will become more clearly evident from the following description of exemplary embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

Fig. 1 shows a plan view of a packing container according to the invention,
Fig. 2 shows a cross-sectional view of the packing container taken along the line II-II in Fig. 2, showing the packing container in the act of being folded around an electric household appliance,
Fig. 3 shows an enlarged detail of Fig. 2,
Fig. 4a, b and c show three variations of the attachment of a closure flap of the packing container, and
Fig. 5 shows the packing container according to the invention during the last phase of its being closed around an electric household appliance.

The description and drawings refer to a packing container 7 for an electric household appliance 8 having a square base. The packing container 7 is formed of a thermoplastic material, for instance polypropylene, which is extruded so as to form a one-piece rectangular sheet 9 the top surface of which is provided with four bars 10, 11, 12, 13 extending parallel to each other at right angles to the longitudinal axis of sheet 9 (Figs. 1 and 2).
Each bar 10, 11, 12, 13 extends over the full width of sheet 9 and is of substantially L-shaped cross-sectional configuration (Fig. 3). The cross- sections of the two outer bars 10 and 13 face inwards of the sheet 9, while the two inner bars 11 and 12 face outwards in opposite directions, the distance I between the vertical elements of bars 10, 13 and the vertical elements of the associated bars 11, 12 corresponding to the width of respective sidewalls of household appliance 8,
In this manner, associated pairs of bars 10, 11, 12, 13 are adapted to cooperate with one another for protecting the vertical edges and the corners of appliance 8 in the closed state of the packing container.
During the extrusion step, sheet 9 with bars 10, 11, 12, 13 is cut to a length corresponding to the sum of the height of appliance 8 and the dimension of its base. Subsequently sheet 9 is subjected to a finishing operation for the formation of a closure flap 15, four top panels 21, 22, 23, 24, four bottom panels 17, 18, 19, 20 and a plurality of recessed relief zones 14 permitting the various panels to be folded inwards as the packing operation proceeds.
The bars 10,11,12,13 extending over two non- adjacent bottom panels 18, 20 are formed with four recesses 16 adapted to receive the legs 30 of the appliance 8, so that in the finished packing container the full weight of the appliance is not concentrated in the area of these legs (Fig. 2).
After the finishing operation, sheet 9 is formed with longitudinally and transversely extending folding lines 29 delimiting bottom panels 17, 18, 19, 20, top panels 21, 22, 23, 24 and sidewall panels 25, 26, 27, 28 of the packing container. It is to be noted that sheet 9 as well as bars 10, 11, 12, 13 are extruded so as to present a cellular structure 14 as shown in detail in Fig. 3. The cellular structure 14 is advantageously formed with varying dimensions for the different portions of which sheet 9 is composed (Fig. 3). The cellular structure is intended to reduce the weight of the packing container and to impart increased resiliency to the contact areas between appliance 8 and the protective bars 10, 11, 12, 13.
At the end of these operations, the packing container is ready for receiving the electric household appliance 8 for which it is suitably dimensioned. In practice, the packing container 7 according to the invention may be modified for employ with various types of electric household appliances by merely varying the length to which sheet 9 and bars 10, 11, 12, 13 are cut, the associated pairs of bars 10, 11, 12,13 being in any case spaced by a distance I corresponding to the length of the sides of the base of the respective appliance (Fig. 2).
It is to be noted that bars 10, 11, 12, 13 of the packing container 7 according to the invention may be co-extruded with the sheet 9 in such a manner that bars of different dimensions are formed in different positions on the sheet, it being also possible to employ materials which are structurally different from those constituting the basic sheet and more suitable for various types of appliances to be packed.
As a matter of fact, the packing container according to the invention lends itself to readily achieve a structural and dimensional flexibility particularly advantageous on the one hand for manufacturers having a specialized production, and on the other hand, even more important, for manufacturers having a diversified production.
It is evident that these characteristics render the employ of the packing container 7 according to the invention particularly advantageous in those industrial sectors the products of which are of the modular type, for instance in the combination furniture sector.
In the initial phase of the packing process, electric household appliance 8 is laid down on the two protective bars 10, 11 of sidewall panel 25 as shown in Fig. 2, whereupon front panel 26 and sidewall panel 27 with the two other protective bars 12, 13 are folded upwards and backwards into contact with appliance 8, followed by rear panel 28 including closure flap 15 being also folded upwards.
Closure flap 15 may be provided with snap fastener means 31 as shown in Fig. 4a. As an alternative, flap 15 may attached to sidewall panel 27 onto which it is folded down by means of adhesive tape or staples as shown in Figs. 4b and 4c, respectively. At the end of these operations, the packing container is in the state shown in Fig. 5.
Subsequently bottom panels 18, 20 and lateral bottom panels 17, 19 are closed with the aid of adhesive tape, staples or the like, followed by closing top panels 22, 24 and top lateral panels 21, 23 in similar manner, whereupon the thus packed electric household appliance 8 is tilted to the upright position in which it rests on bottom panels 18, 20, the latter being provided with the recesses 16 for the legs of the electric household appliance 8, so that the weight thereof is evenly distributed over the protective bars of the base panels.
In this manner the packing container according to the invention greatly simplifies and rationalizes the packing process, as it includes in a one-piece construction the outer envelope as well as the protective spacers for the top plane, the bottom plane and the edges and corners of the electric household appliance 8 to be packed.
In addition, the packing container may be made of any suitable thermoplastic material having sufficient rigidity for ensuring protection of the packaged goods during storage and shipment from the manufacturer to the user, and capable of being extruded with an internal structure adapted to render more resilient the contact points with the electric household appliance and to resiliently absorb unevenly distributed loads possibly exerted on the surfaces of the packing container during storage and shipment.
It is thus evident that the integral construction of the described packing container greatly simplifies storage of the packing container itself and a possible automatization of the packing process.
The packing container according to the invention may of course be modified in various manners within the scope of the characteristics set forth in the claims.

Claims

1. A packing container for goods of parallelepiped configuration, particularly electric household appliances, comprising at least one sheet of a pre-shaped material adapted to be folded so as to envelop an electric household appliance with the interposition of angular protection elements, characterized in that said sheet (9) of a preshaped material is made of an extruded plastic material having a cellular structure (14), and that said angular protection elements (10, 11, 12,13) are integrally formed with said sheet (9) on the upper surface thereof.

2. A packing container according to claim 1, characterized in that said angular protection elements are formed as elongate bars (10, 11, 12, 13) extending in parallel spaced relationship over the full width of said sheet (9) and having an L-shaped cross-sectional configuration oriented in such a manner that pairs of said bars (10, 11, 12, 13) cooperate in the folded state to cover the corners, the vertical edges and parts of the horizontal edges of the electric household appliance (8).

3. A packing container according to claim 1, characterized in that said bars (10, 11, 12, 13) are formed by a co-extrusion process on the upper surface of said sheet (9) and in that the cells (14) constituting their structure are variably dimensioned with respect to the structural cells (14) of the basic sheet (9).

4. A packing container according to claim 1, characterized in that said sheet (9) is formed with recessed zones (14) and folding zones (29) defining four bottom panels (17, 18, 19, 20), four top panels (21, 22, 23, 24) and four sidewall panels (25, 26, 27, 28) adapted to be successively closed so as to completely envelop said electric household appliance (8).

5. A packing container according to the preceding claims, characterized in that each of said bars (10, 11, 12, 13) of two bottom panels (18, 20) is formed with a cylindrical recess (16) adapted to receive therein a corresponding support leg (30) of said electric household appliance (8) in the folded state.

6. A packing container according to the preceding claims, characterized in that a closure sidewall panel (28) of said packing container is provided with a flap (15) adapted to be secured by means of a snap fastener device (31) to the surface of the sidewall panel (25) onto which it is folded down for closing the packing container.