EP0739292A1

EP0739292A1 - Device for producing and filling tubular packages

Info

Publication number: EP0739292A1
Application number: EP95905533A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Guenther Dipl-Ing Knieriem
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1994-01-15
Filing date: 1995-01-12
Publication date: 1996-10-30
Anticipated expiration: 2015-01-12
Also published as: DE4401031C1; EP0739292B1; WO1995019292A1; DE59500566D1; AU1412795A

Abstract

The description relates to a device for producing and filling tubular packages consisting of a feed device (2, 3, 6) for the contents, the outlet of which is connected to a filler pipe (8), a shaping tube (9) surrounding the end of the filler pipe (8) to accept a foil tube and a conveyor (24 to 29) to take the foil tube (10) over the shaping tube (9), characterised by a drive (13 to 25) to derive the conveying movement of the foil tube (10) from the longitudinal movement of a drive piston (5).

Description

description

Device for producing and filling tubular bag packs

The invention relates to a device for producing and filling tubular bag packs with filling material, consisting of a feed device for the filling material, the outlet of which is connected to a filling tube, a format tube enclosing the end of the filling tube for receiving a film tube, and a transport device for transporting the film tube over the format tube.

Tubular bag packs serve in various ways, among other things, to encase liquid and pasty masses during transport and storage. In many cases, the product reacts with components of the ambient air, e.g. B. the humidity, so that there is a demand for air-free filling of the tubular bag packs. For this purpose, it is necessary that the filling tube constantly touches the surface of the filling material during the filling process and that the filling material flow is not interrupted. On the other hand, a changing level on the filling pipe, particularly with rapidly reacting and adhesive filling compounds, leads to contamination of the filling pipe and thus to undesired production interruptions. So-called volume-synchronous level filling is desirable. Tubular bag packs are preferably formed from a flat sheet of film into a film tube, filled and sealed. The film web can be a mono or composite film, depending on the requirements placed on the contents or the transport and processing conditions. The overlapping longitudinal edges of the film are connected to each other, usually welded.

Processes for the production of tubular bag packs have largely prevailed, in which the film is periodically welded at the longitudinal edges, the endless tube formed is filled air-free and then closed and separated by a fixed closing device.

In principle, there is the possibility of carrying out the welding process continuously and the sealing process by means of moving (flying) sealing devices.

In the filling device according to DE-OS 28 48 706, the film tube is continuously transported in the longitudinal direction and the contents are continuously conveyed and filled in by means of a pump. The filling tube is arranged in a fixed position, while the devices for gathering the film tube together at the end of the tube bag, closing and separating in the active phase run synchronously with the tube jacket (flying arrangement). So you have to do a constant back and forth movement; this requires a high level of design effort and constant coordination of the film speed with the product flow.

With "kettle mixing", ie with discontinuous premixing, and also with "kettle pressing", the discontinuous pressing of the filling compound or the filling material, there is an increase towards the end of the pressing of flow resistance. Therefore, the speed of the film removal must be constantly adjusted to the volume discharge. The requirements for the synchronization of foil removal and volume filling are considerable.

Furthermore, DE-OS 31 21 101 describes a method for producing tubular packaging with any cross section. The shaping takes place in that the bulky packing is pressed by means of pulling jaws and the additional casing material is pulled through the displacement shears. This results in a heavy load on the jacket.

From DE-GM 90 11 155 a tubular bag filling machine is known in which an open tube is formed from a flat sheet film and intermittently by a

Beam welding device is welded in the longitudinal direction. When the hose is filled by means of a metering pump, it is transported only by the pressure of the filled material and is then grasped by jaws which are pushed on by a pressure medium cylinder to close and separate the hose bags. The known tubular bag filling machine has the disadvantage that a considerable pressure is built up to overcome the frictional resistance in the tubular bag just filled. The build-up of pressure presupposes an adequate seal between the filling tube and the film jacket, so that constantly occurring diameter tolerances of the film jacket and the change to other tubular bag diameters present difficulties.

DE-OS 40 20 391 describes a device for the production of tubular bag packs, in which the film feed proceeds synchronously with the filling and the air-free filling of the pack takes place by the volume-synchronous retraction of the filling tube. This design is also in the construction complex. Due to the constant back and forth movement of the metering drive cylinder, the entire system becomes restless at higher cycle rates and is therefore limited in its filling capacity.

In a known device for producing filled packagings (DE-OS 21 29 626), the film web processed therein is adhesive-coated and is closed after the insertion of an article by pressure on the longitudinal and transverse edges. The transport movement of the film web is derived from the longitudinal movement of a drive piston actuated by pressure medium.

Finally, DE 24 37 123 A1 describes a vacuum packaging machine for producing sealed packs, in which the thermoformed film is advanced almost continuously by revolving chains. The synchronous chain movements are derived from the reciprocating movement of a pressure-actuated piston in such a way that a double-sided toothed rack connected to the piston meshes with counter-rotating gearwheels and these gearwheels act with anti-parallel freewheels on chainwheels so that they alternately drive the chains drive in only one direction.

Both of the latter devices, however, do not relate to devices for producing and filling tubular bag packs.

The invention is therefore based on the object of specifying a method for producing and intermittently filling tubular bag packs with viscous filling material, with which volume-synchronous filling can be achieved. The device according to the invention for producing and filling tubular bag packs with filling material, consisting of a feed device for the filling material, the outlet of which is connected to a filling tube, a format tube enclosing the end of the filling tube for receiving a film tube, and with a transport device for transporting the film tube via the Format tube, is characterized in detail by a gear for deriving the transport movement of the film tube from the longitudinal movement of a drive piston which is fixedly connected to the metering piston of a metering device and wherein the transmission ratio of the gear is inversely proportional to the quotient of the area of the metering piston and the cross-sectional area of the finished tubular bag pack is. The fill pipe can form a part with the format pipe, ie the fill pipe can also serve as a format pipe at the same time.

The measures according to the invention result in the advantage that the transport path of the film tube for producing and filling a tubular bag pack results in a simple manner from the stroke of the drive piston. Expensive drive motors with complex control and film length measurement are not necessary.

Furthermore, there is the advantage that the desired synchronization between the transport path of the film tube and the filling quantity is set automatically, and the filling quantity is thus amazingly simple to adapt to the final cross-section of the finished tubular bag, for example to a square cross-section, and the desired volume-synchronous level filling can be achieved. Advantageous further developments and refinements of the invention result from the subclaims.

In an advantageous embodiment, the transmission comprises a toothed rack connected to the piston rod of the drive piston, a toothed wheel meshing with the toothed rack, which is connected to a coaxially running sprocket via a rotational direction lock (freewheel), and a chain wheel that wraps around and on part of its circumference Endless drive chain guided by additional rollers for driving the transport device.

This configuration enables the repetitive piston movement to be converted into a progressive movement of all the components involved in the transport of the film tube in a simple manner and, moreover, allows easy adaptation to the structural conditions of the respective device. A hydraulic or pneumatic drive system or a combination of these systems can also be used to derive the transport movement of the film tube from the longitudinal movement of the drive piston.

In such an embodiment, a horizontal structure of the device is made possible in that the piston rod of the drive piston is connected to a first rack, which in turn is connected to a second rack via a deflection gear.

According to a further advantageous embodiment, the device is provided with at least one additional drive that is operatively connected to the drive chain, the direction of movement of which is superimposed on the direction of movement of the drive chain. This measure of arranging at least one intermediate feed allows the free space for the closure to be created, with the advantage that the closure can take place both under mass (air-free filling) and in a product-free zone (bulk material).

According to a further advantageous embodiment, the at least one additional drive has a chain wheel which is actuated by pressure medium, contains a directional lock and is wrapped by the drive chain on part of its circumference. This allows the timing of the at least one additional drive to be synchronized with the lifting movement in a simple manner.

An embodiment of the invention is shown in the drawing and explained in more detail in the following description.

The same components with the same function are provided with the same reference symbols in the drawing.

Show it:

1 schematically shows the structure of a first embodiment of the device for producing tubular bag packaging with pumpable filling material,

Fig. 2 shows the filling scheme of the device according to Fig.1 and

Fig. 3 shows schematically the structure of a second embodiment.

1 has a metering cylinder 2 with a cross-sectional area "A" in which there is a floating piston 3 with the same cross-sectional area, driven by the filling material and one Pressure medium device 5 is located. The dosing cylinder 2 is connected to a three-way slide 6 which guides the filling material from a pressing device (not shown) to the dosing cylinder 2 during the filling process, and from the dosing cylinder 2 to a filling tube 8 during the dosing stroke of the piston 3. The filling tube 8 is concentrically enclosed over part of its length by a format tube 9 with the larger diameter "B", on which the film tube 10 slides for the manufacture of the tubular bag. In the exemplary embodiment, the filling tube 8 is separate from the format tube 9, but it can also be a format tube at the same time.

The film tube 10 is formed in a known manner in that a flat sheet of film 11 is withdrawn from a supply roll 12 and is formed into a tube via a shaping shoulder 30, the longitudinal edges of which are intermittently welded to a closed tube by a bar welder during the sealing process in accordance with the foil advance.

With the piston rod 4, a rack 14 guided parallel to the piston rod 4 is fixedly connected via a cantilever arm 13. The rack 14 meshes with a fixedly arranged gear 15, which is connected coaxially with a chain wheel 16 via a freewheel. In the plane of the chain wheel 16, a drive chain 17 is designed, which is guided by a series of deflection rollers 18, 19, 20 and is held under tension by a tensioning roller 21. The drive chain 17 drives a further number of sprockets, the function of which will be described below.

The two chain wheels 22, 23 are wrapped in opposite directions by the drive chain 17, so that their direction of rotation is also opposite in the case of a chain movement. Each of the two sprockets 22, 23 is rotatably fixed with a drive roller 24, 25 connected. The drive rollers 24, 25 form loops for foil withdrawal belts 28, 29 with deflection rollers 26, 27 arranged at a distance. Both film withdrawal belts 28, 29 each have a strand under tension on the format tube 9 with the film tube 10 interposed. Freewheel lock in the wheel sets 15, 16; 31, 32 only allow the film withdrawal bands 28, 29 and thus the film tube 10 to move in the forward direction.

Another drive sprocket 30 is wrapped around the drive chain 17 and is connected to a gear 32 via a directional lock (not shown). The toothed wheel 32 meshes with a toothed rack 34 in such a way that when the toothed rack 34 moves, the chain wheel 32 executes a rotational movement in the direction of the drive chain 17. The rack 34 is one with a piston

Connected pressure medium device and serves to generate an additional feed movement, as will be described in more detail below.

As already mentioned, when filling tubular bags with strongly adhesive and rapidly curing products, volume-synchronous filling is generally sought in order to ensure air-free filling and to avoid contamination of the filling tube. In the present embodiment this is

Total transmission ratio between the path of the piston 3 and thus the rack 14 and the circumferential path of the drive rollers 24, 25 is chosen so that it corresponds to the reverse ratio of the cross sections "A" and "B". In other words: the product volume conveyed by the metering device 1 corresponds to the volume of the film tube 10 over the undisturbed length. The filled tubular bag packs are, as usual, closed and separated from each other in the filling cycle. The facilities required for this are known per se and are not necessary for understanding the invention. They are therefore shown only schematically in the drawing and are described below only to the extent that it appears appropriate for explaining the mode of operation of the invention.

When the filled tubular bag packs are closed, the film tube is gathered together by gripper plates acting on both sides, thereby displacing the contents in the closing area. The just filled tubular bag package is closed at the end and the new one to be filled at the beginning by means of a double clip closing device. The tubular bag packs are then separated from one another between the two clip closures that have been placed.

By gathering the film jacket together, the tubular bag pack tapers at the beginning and at the end, so that less volume can be introduced there per unit length of the film tube. Because of the requirement for air-free filling, it is not possible to average this difference in capacity. To compensate for this excess volume, an additional feed device 30, 32, 34 is therefore provided in the device according to the invention. Here too, a freewheel lock in the wheel set serves to permit the movement of the chain wheel 32 and thus of the drive chain 17 only in each case in the forward direction. For example, the application of pressure to the piston for driving the rack 34 at the end of the filling process ensures that the drive chain 17 moved by the piston rod 4 during the filling process is given an additional movement in the same direction. With the additional movement of the film tube caused thereby, the required Free space for product displacement in the closing area is gained.

The effective stroke of the additional feed device can be individually adjusted to adapt to different tubular bag and product properties.

A gear set may be provided in the transmission chain, e.g. the wheel set 15, 16, the wheels of which are easily interchangeable and which allow the overall transmission ratio to be adjusted by simply exchanging the wheels or the wheel set.

The manufacturing and filling scheme of the device according to the invention is shown in simplified form in FIG. 2. 2c shows two movement phases, while FIGS. 2a, 2b, 2d and 2e each show a movement phase. The film tube 10 is formed again in a known manner in that the film flat web 11 is removed from the supply roll 12 and is formed into a tube via a shaping shoulder 40, the longitudinal edges of which are intermittently closed during the pauses in the filling process in accordance with the film advance by a bar welding device 41 Hose are welded. 2 with pull-off rollers 42, 43, which are driven in the same way as the film pull-off belts 28, 29 (FIG. 1). A sealing device (clip station) 45 coupled with shirring plates 44 displaces the filling material 46 from the film tube 10 and seals it on both sides of the cutting device 47, which separates the filled and sealed tube bags 48 from the film tube 10 at both ends.

2b shows the beginning of the filling process after the tip of the film tube in the previously described manner through the closing device (clip station) 45 has been locked. In accordance with the progress of the filling, the pull-off rollers 42, 43 on both sides of the format tube 9 are driven in the depicted working phase, depending on the working path of the piston 3 in the metering cylinder 2. After the filling is complete, the additional feed device 30, 32, 34 (FIG. 1) engages in the drive of the 2c and, according to FIG. 2c, creates a zone 49 of underfill between two tubular bag volumes via the free stroke, into which the packer plates 44 then plunge (FIG. 2d) and displace the filling material 46 when the film tube 10 is gathered. Fig. 2e shows the completion of this process, which is followed by the closing process according to Fig. 2a. This completes a filling and closing cycle.

In contrast to the exemplary embodiment according to FIG. 1, a horizontal arrangement of the filling device is provided in the exemplary embodiment according to FIG. 3. The filling tube 8 'is therefore straight. The transmission of the movement of the piston rod 4 to the drive chain 17 therefore requires a deflection of 90 °, which is achieved in that two toothed racks 14 'and 14 "are provided which are connected via a deflection gear. The deflection gear consists of two mutually engaged Bevel gears 36, 38, which are each connected to a spur gear 35, 37, which in turn interact with the toothed racks 14 ", 14 '.

Claims

Expectations

1. Device for producing and filling tubular bag packs with filling material, consisting of a feed device (2, 3, 6) for the filling material, the outlet of which is connected to a filling tube (8), a format tube (9) enclosing the end of the filling tube (8) ) for receiving a film tube (10), and with a

Transport device (24 to 29; 42, 43) for transporting the film tube (10) via the format tube (9), characterized by a gear (13 to 23) for deriving the transport movement of the film tube (10) from the longitudinal movement of a drive piston (5) , which is firmly connected to the metering piston (3) of a metering device (1) and wherein the transmission ratio of the gear (13 to 23) is inversely proportional to the quotient of the area of the metering piston (3) and the cross-sectional area of the finished tubular bag pack.

2. Apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that the transmission has a gear rack (14) connected to the piston rod (4) of the drive piston (5), a gear wheel (15) meshing with the gear rack (14), which has a chain wheel running in the same axis (16) is connected via a direction of rotation lock (freewheel), and an endless drive chain (17) which surrounds the sprocket (16) on part of its circumference and is guided on additional rollers (18 to 23, 31) for driving the transport device (24 to 29 ) includes.

3. Apparatus according to claim 1, characterized in that the transmission is connected to the piston rod (4) of the drive piston (5) connected to the first rack (14 ') via a deflection gear (35, 36, 37, 38) with a second rack (14 ") is connected, a with the second rack (14") meshing gear (15), which is connected to a coaxial sprocket (16) via a rotation lock (freewheel), and the sprocket (16) on one part includes endless drive chain (17) which wraps around its circumference and is guided on additional rollers (18 to 23, 31) for driving the transport device (24 to 29).

4. Device according to one of claims 2 or 3, characterized by at least one additional drive (30, 32, 34) operatively connected to the drive chain (17), the direction of movement of which is superimposed on the direction of movement of the drive chain (17).

5. The device according to claim 4, characterized in that the at least one additional drive (30,32,34) actuated by pressure medium, a rotational direction lock (freewheel) containing and wrapped by the drive chain (17) on part of its circumference sprocket (30) having.