EP0550431B1

EP0550431B1 - A bottle package

Info

Publication number: EP0550431B1
Application number: EP90915415A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Jesper Donne
Original assignee: DON PLAST AS
Current assignee: DON PLAST AS
Priority date: 1989-04-04
Filing date: 1990-10-03
Publication date: 1995-06-28
Anticipated expiration: 2010-10-03
Also published as: DK162711C; WO1992006016A1; DK162711B; DE69020585D1; DK161389D0; EP0550431A1; DK161389A

Abstract

A bottle package (1) serves to hold a smaller number of bottles together in a group and to carry this group as a whole. The package consists of a preferably thin plate-shaped material which is formed with a plurality of substantially ring-shaped carrier regions (9, 10) each carrying a bottle by means of engagement with a bead (11) on the bottle neck, a cap (12) on it, or both at the same time. The package (1) has substantially the shape of a downwardly open cap with a downwardly facing skirt (2) enclosing, in use, at any rate the upper part of the group of bottles, and a bottom (4) containing the carrier regions (9, 10). The carrier regions are so arranged that, when the bottles are carried in the package (1), they take up the bottle weight via the inner side (15) of their plate material, which preferably consists of a suitable elastic plastics type. Since each carrier region (9, 10) is moreover formed with axially extending waves (17), the region may be expanded sufficiently for a bottle neck to be engaged as well as disengaged from the region (9, 10) without it being deformed permanently, and the package can therefore be used and re-used several times for packaging and transporting filled bottles as well as empty returnable bottles. This provides considerable environmental and economic advantages.

Description

The invention concerns a bottle package for holding and carrying a group of bottles and consisting of a preferably thin plate formed as an open cap with a skirt facing downwardly in normal use and closed at the top of a bottom containing a plurality of substantially ring-shaped carrier regions. Such a package is for instance known from US-A-4 139 094 and US-A-3 912 075.
Packages of this type serving to transport a small number, e.g. three or six bottles of beer or other beverage, are known. These packages normally have four sides which are folded from a single piece of cardboard or a similar material. The lower one of these sides is formed with guide openings for the bottles, and the upper carrier opening is formed with punched serrations or flaps permitting the bottle neck with applied cap to be inserted through the respective carrier opening, but not out again since the serrations or the flaps then jump inwardly like a kind of barbs and lock below the downwardly facing edge of a cap. To remove the bottles, the package therefore has to be torn apart, and it can therefore only be used once. Considering the very large package amounts used this is of course a considerable problem both economically and environmentally, and the user, who now just has the destroyed package at his disposal, is then left with the problem, not insignificant in itself, of how to handle and return the empty returnable bottles, which could so conveniently be transported home in the robust cardboard package.
The object of the invention is to provide a package of the type stated in the opening paragraph, which is inexpensive and easy to mass-produce, and which can be used repeatedly for carrying filled bottles with applied cap as well as empty bottles without.
This is achieved in that each carrier region has a substantially tubular part downwardly open and entirely or partly closed upwardly by a top, said tubular part having at least one inwardly facing circumferential bead arranged at a distance from the top, and the tubular part is further adapted to elastically expand from a rest position to an expanded state.
Moreover, according to the invention, each carrier region and the plate areas immediately adjoining it may extend, in axial section in preferably softly bent curves whose tangents are nowhere at right angles to the axis of the region, whereby the acute angle of the tangents with the axis may moreover be less than 80°, preferably less than 60° and in particular less than 45°. This is advantageous for reasons of production and also involve safe holding of the bottle neck and moreover entails that the said bottle neck can be engaged and disengaged from the package without damaging it.
A particularly favourable elastic expansion of the carrier regions is obtained in an advantageous embodiment of the invention in that each of said carrier regions and/or the plate areas immediately adjoining these are formed with a plurality of substantially axially extending waves and/or slots.
Further, according to the invention, each carrier region may be adapted to engage simultanesouly with both a bead on the bottle neck and a cap on it, so as to provide a dual and therefore additionally sturdy engagement with the somewhat heavier, filled bottles which are provided with caps.
The package moreover consists of an elastic material, such as elastic plastics, which can be integrally formed to a unitary member by means of moulding, pressure or vacuum forming. This provides easy and inexpensive production and entails that, in contrast to cardboard, the material can be subjected to considerable non-permanent deformations, thereby making it possible to re-use the package. Therefore, the package is normally recycled with the returnable bottles to the beverage producer, who can use the package again or return it to the package manufacturer if it should have been damaged e.g. in transport. Finally, the package manufacturer may then repaint the used plastics package and thereby produce a product which may be used for moulding new plastics objects. Thus, considerable economic as well as environmental advantages are obtained.
According to the invention, the bottom of the cap-shaped package may moreover be pulled upwardly at each carrier region in a downwardly open tubular part, which contains the respective carrier region and is preferably closed upwardly, and a guide for each of the bottles may be provided in the downwardly facing skirt in continuation of the tubular part. The bottles are hereby duly held in position in the package during storage as well as during transport, and the packaged groups of bottles will moreover be stackable since each group can stably stand on the bottom of the subjacent package between its tubular parts, which at the same time accommodate the upper part of the bottle necks so that the total stack height will be smaller than is the case when using the known cardboard packages.
Further, according to the invention, the bottom of the cap-shaped package may be formed with at least one finger hole for carrying the packaged group of bottles.
Additionally, according to the invention, the package skirt may downwardly be provided with a peripherally extending edge reinforcement in the form of a protruding flange or rib in order to stiffen the package.
The invention will be explained more fully below with reference to the drawing, in which

fig. 1 is a perspective and oblique top view of a bottle package according to the invention with a group of six bottles in all, drawn in dotted line,
fig. 2 is a perspective oblique bottom view of the package shown in fig. 1,
fig. 3 shows the same, but seen straight from below,
fig. 4 shows a package according to the invention, seen from the end with the right side in section and with a bottle neck drawn in dotted line,
fig. 5 shows the same, but in another embodiment,
fig. 6 is a fraction of a vertical section through a package according to the invention with a bottle neck drawn in solid line,
fig. 7 is a section along the line VII-VII in fig. 6,
fig. 8 is a side view of a package according to the invention,
fig. 9 is a fraction of a longitudinal section through the package shown in fig. 8, where the punching for the left finger opening is visible, and
fig. 10 is a section corresponding to fig. 9, where the right finger opening is visible, the free-punched flap being opened.

The shown bottle package, which is generally indicated by 1, is made of a relatively thin plate-shaped material, e.g. elastic plastics, which may be transparent or coloured and, as desired, additionally be provided with prints to indicate the nature and brand of the bottle contents.
Fig. 1 shows a package for a total of six bottles drawn in dotted line. The package is formed in a single piece by means of known manufacturing techniques, such as moulding, pressing or vacuum forming. As will be described more fully below, the package may be used repeatedly, but if it nevertheless eventually has to be rejected, e.g. because of damage in transport, the plastics material may be repainted and be used again for moulding new objects, so that altogether the package involves considerable economic and environmental advantages.
In the shown embodiment, the package 1 is vacuum formed in hot state from a stiff and elastic plastics sheet to a form resembling a downwardly open cap which has a downwardly facing skirt 2, which is downwardly stiffened with a flange 3, and a bottom 4 with finger holes 5 in which the package can be held when it is to be carried. The package surrounds the neck region of the total group of bottles with its skirt 2 and moreover guides the bottles by means of guides 6 provided in the skirt 2 with a shape corresponding to the bottle necks. In continuation of these guides 6, tubular parts 7 are drawn upwardly above the level of the bottom 4, said parts 7 being downwardly open and closed upwardly with a top 8 in which a further opening may optionally be provided.
As shown best in the right half of figs. 4, 5 and 6, the plastics sheet of the tubular parts 7 are formed with ring-shaped carrier regions 9; 10 to hold the bottles by means of engagement with a bead 11 on the bottle neck or cap 12 on it. Figs. 4 and 6 show a first embodiment 9 of such a carrier region, where a single engagement takes place with the neck bead 11. In contrast to the known cardboard packages, the group of bottles may thus be carried by means of the package of the invention, irrespective of whether the bottles are provided with caps or not, and the package is therefore useful for filled bottles as well as for empty returnable bottles.
Fig. 5 shows another embodiment 10, where the carrier region has a dual engagement for filled bottels, said region 10 having an upper region section 13 engaging with the cap 12, and a lower region section 14 which simultaneously engages with the bottle bead 11. During carrying, the package can hereby safely hold filled bottles which are extra heavy, while the empty and therefore lighter bottles are held by the lower region section 14 in the same manner as in the first embodiment.
While the bottle weight in the known cardboard packages are taken up by the edges on the locked serrations or flaps during carrying in such a manner that it is necessary to tear the package apart in order to release the packaged bottles, the weight is taken up by the inner side of the plastics sheet of the carrier regions 9; 10 in the package of the invention. It is therefore possible to withdraw a packaged bottle without simultaneously destroying the package, which can therefore be used again for returnable bottles or for new filled bottles.
For this process to proceed safely without the package being damaged, each carrier region may be expanded elastically from a rest position in which the clear of the region is smaller than the outside diameter of the bottle bead and/or the cap, to an expanded state in which the clear is at least just as great as said diameter, so that the bottle neck can be engaged and disengaged from the package without difficulty.
With a view to promoting the process further, each carrier region and the plate areas immediately adjoining it extend, in axial section in preferably softly bent curves, whose tangents are nowhere at right angles to the axis of the region, whereby the acute angle of the tangents with the axis is less than 80°, preferably less than 60° and in particular less than 45°. This prevents the risk of e.g. sharp edges on the bottle cap digging into the material during the insertion or removal of the bottle neck in the respective carrier region.
The above-mentioned expansion of the carrier regions is relatively great and frequently considerably greater than the elasticity of the plastics material permits per se, and axially extending waves 16; 17 are therefore provided in or/and at the carrier regions in a particularly advantageous embodiment, the material being capable of elastically bending so much that the necessary expansion of the carrier region can take place with certainty without permanent deformations. Figs. 4, 6 and 7 show a first embodiment 16 of such waves, while fig. 5 shows another embodiment 17, where the waves 17 extend axially from a plate area below the lower region section 14 up to the upper region section 13. Instead of waves, the sheet may be perforated by slots likewise extending axially.
When the bottles are packaged in groups in the package of the invention, they may be stacked vertically on top of each other, since each group can stand on the bottom of the subjacent package between its tubular parts. Since these moreover accommodate the upper part of the bottle neck, the total height of the stacked bottles is reduced correspondingly with respect to bottles stacked by means of conventional cardboard packages.

Claims

A bottle package (1) for holding and carrying a group of bottles and consisting of a preferably thin plate formed as an open cap with a skirt (2) facing downwardly in normal use and closed at the top of a bottom (4) containing a plurality of substantially ring-shaped carrier regions, characterized in that each carrier region has a substantially tubular part (7) downwardly open and entirely or partly closed upwardly by a top (8), said tubular part (7) having at least one inwardly facing circumferential bead (11; 13, 14) arranged at a distance from the top (8), and the tubular part (7) is further adapted to elastically expand from a rest position to an expanded state.
A bottle package according to claim 1, characterized in that each carrier region and the plate areas immediately adjoining it extend, in axial section preferably in softly bent curves, whose tangents are nowhere at right angles to the axis of the region.
A bottle package according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the acute angle of the tangents with the axis is less than 80°, preferably less than 60° and in particular less than 45°.
A bottle package according to one or more of claims 1-3, characterized in that a plurality of substantially axially extending waves and/or slots (16; 17) are formed in each carrier region and/or the plate areas immediately adjoining it.
A bottle package according to one or more of claims 1-4, characterized in that each carrier region is adapted to engage simultaneously with both a bead of the bottle neck and a cap on it.
A bottle package according to one or more of claims 1-5, characterized in that the package (1) consists of an elastic material, such as elastic plastics, which is integrally formed to a single piece by means of moulding, pressing or vacuum forming.
A bottle package according to one or more of claims 1-6, characterized in that the bottom (4) of the cap-shaped package (1) is pulled upwardly at each carrier region in a downwardly open tubular part (7), which contains the respective carrier region and is preferably closed upwardly, and that a guide (6) for each of the bottles is formed in the downwardly facing skirt in continuation of the tubular part (7).
A bottle package according to one or more of claims 1-7, characterized in that the bottom (4) of the cap-shaped package (1) is formed with at least one finger hole (5) for carrying the packaged group of bottles.
A bottle package according to one or more of claims 1-8, characterized in that the skirt (2) of the cap-shaped package is downwardly provided with a peripherally extending edge reinforcement in the form of a protruding flange or rib (3).