EP2295331B1 - Folding box with interior chamber - Google Patents

Abstract

The folding box is formed out of a one-piece blank (1), and includes an outer packaging body (3) and a hollow inner chamber (5). The outer packaging body has a front wall (7), a rear wall (9), at least two side walls (11), a top component (13), and a bottom component (15). The inner chamber is provided in the interior of outer packaging body of rectangular cross section. The inner chamber is formed by folding the front wall component, the rear wall component, and the side wall components toward the outer side of blank. The width of inner chamber is less than the width of outer packaging body.

Description

The present invention relates to a carton for storing and presenting products having an outer packaging body, a hollow inner chamber disposed therein, in which a product is securely held in the closed state of the carton. In particular, the invention relates to a folding box as described above, in which the inner chamber can be arranged in a variety of ways within the outer packaging body.

There is a variety of carton of the type mentioned with inner chambers or cavity walls known, for example from the DE 200 16 959 U1 , In the volumes created by the inner chambers or hollow walls, high quality products of any shape, such as cosmetics, medicines or foods, are usually presented in an appealing manner and at the same time safely stored in the carton.

The FR 2 853 884 A discloses a carton for storing products having an outer packaging body and an inner packaging body formed from a one-piece blank, wherein inner and outer packaging bodies are bonded to each other on at least two mutually perpendicular side walls. To produce the folding box, the one-piece blank is always folded onto the inside, so that the inner surfaces of the inner packaging body are formed by the inside of the blank.

In order for such folding boxes to be manufactured prefabricated and subsequently unfolded, the hollow walls or hollow chambers lying in the interior of a folding box must be firmly connected to the outer packaging body. For this purpose, the inner components must be stuck permanently fixing with the inner surfaces of the outer packaging body. In order to ensure a secure bonding in the case of surface bonding of cardboard material and also to ensure that no glue is pressed from the adhesive surfaces to the outside after bonding, certain structural restrictions are prescribed. Thus, a surface to be glued must have a minimum surface which, according to the current state of the art, is 8 mm in width and length. For folding cartons, this means that adhesive tabs must have a minimum width of 8 mm, so that sufficient glue can be applied which, moreover, must not exceed the area to be glued after pressing.

Another constraint for arranged inside a carton hollow walls is that only results in a significant 90 ° edge at a folding line at a fold line when the width of the cavity wall along the fold line is greater than also 8 mm.

To understand this statement, it must be said that the folding cartons for products are printed, cut, punched, folded and glued to the carton manufacturer be made that from a flat carton blank also a flat prefabricated carton blank, which is supplied in a flat, stacked form to the product manufacturer and there brought by folding into the cuboid shape, so that the male product can be inserted into the carton, which subsequently is closed and thus reaches its final state.

There are therefore minimum dimensions and minimum distances for the hollow chambers or cavity walls in the interior of folding cartons. Due to the above design-related requirements, it has not hitherto been possible to arrange inner chambers or cavity walls within an outer packaging body whose side walls are not directly bonded to the side walls of the outer packaging body or have a smaller distance from the side walls of the outer packaging body than the above-described, due to gluing minimum dimension of 8 mm.

It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a carton with an inner chamber, wherein the inner chamber can be variably arranged within the entire inner volume of the outer packaging body without minimum distances, in which only a minimum amount of adhesive surface is required and in a befindliches in the inner chamber Product is safely stored and held.

This object is solved by the features of claim 1. Advantageous embodiments are described in the subclaims.

According to the invention, the carton for storing and presenting products comprises an outer packaging body having a front wall, a rear wall, at least two side walls, a lid member and a bottom member, and a hollow interior chamber of quadrangular cross-section arranged inside the outer packaging body Rear panel and two side wall elements is formed and a product is held securely in the closed state of the carton, wherein the carton is formed of a one-piece blank having a first side or inside and a second side or outside, and wherein the outer packaging body and the inner chamber glued together. It is characterized in that the width of the inner chamber is smaller than the width of the outer packaging body such that between at least one side wall in the interior of the outer packaging body and at least one side wall member of the inner chamber, a void is formed, and wherein only one of the outer surfaces the inner chamber elements consisting of front wall element and side wall elements is at least partially bonded to only one of the inner surfaces of the outer packaging body. It is characterized in that the inner chamber is formed by unfolding the front wall element, the rear wall element and the side wall elements on the second side or outside of the blank.

The flexible arrangement of the void between the side walls of the outer packaging body and the side wall surfaces of the inner chamber enables variable positioning of the inner chamber within the outer packaging body. In particular, one is thus independent of minimum distances, which are predetermined by the requirements of a proper bond.

Preferably, the outer packaging body has a quadrangular or polygonal cross-section. In a quadrangular cross section, the corresponding wall elements of the outer packaging body and inner chamber are opposite. However, this is not a mandatory condition, because folding cartons with polygonal cross-section, e.g. hexagonal or octagonal, can be used according to the invention as outer packaging body.

Advantageously, a retaining tab is formed on the rear wall element of the inner chamber, which can be bonded to the front wall element in such a way that, in the unfolded state, a retaining web extending through the inner chamber is formed. This holding web ensures that a product in the inner chamber, whose cross-section towards the bottom of the box is larger than one of the divided by the holding web cross-sectional areas of the inner chamber, can not slip out of the inner chamber, since it is held by the holding web similar to a stop.

With further advantage, the front wall element of the inner chamber has a first recess. This recess may extend in sections over the front wall element of the inner chamber and serves to ensure that the product located in the inner chamber is visible from outside the inner chamber.

Together with the second recess located advantageously in the front wall of the outer packaging body and preferably at least partly superimposed in the unfolded state, it is possible to see parts of the product located in the inner chamber from outside the outer packaging body. Since the inner surface of the front wall of the outer packaging body and the Outside surface of the front wall element of the inner chamber need not necessarily be glued together, there may well be a distance between the first recess and the second recess, resulting in a visually pleasing product presentation within the carton. Both recesses do not necessarily remain open, ie they can be glued depending on the product, for example with transparent film.

Preferably, a tab is formed on at least one side wall of the outer packaging body having three parallel fold lines, wherein the tab is folded in the unfolded state of the carton such that the free end of the tab is at least partially bonded to the inside of the side wall and thereby a cuboidal Cavity is formed, which cooperates with the inner chamber such that a product located in the inner chamber is held therein. This formed by the folding of the tab cavity, which can be folded parallelogram like a closure flap on opening the carton, assumes that inside the outer packaging body, the inner chamber provides a corresponding space in which the cuboid cavity can be folded. Furthermore, it is understood that the holding surface of the cuboidal cavity and the rectangular cross-sectional opening of the inner chamber in the closed state of the folding box overlap or border each other so strongly that in the inner chamber befindliches product can not fall out.

Preferably, the void space between a side wall of the outer packaging body and a side wall surface of the inner chamber is less than 8 mm. This makes it possible to approach the previously required minimum distance due to the bonding with the inner chamber very close to the side wall of the outer packaging body.

Fig. 1

den flachliegenden Kartonzuschnitt einer Faltschachtel gemäß einer bevor- zugten Ausführungsform der Erfindung.

The invention will be described in more detail with reference to the embodiment shown in the drawing. It shows:

Fig. 1

the flat carton blank of a carton according to a preferred embodiment of the invention.

Fig. 1 shows the flat carton blank 1 a preferred embodiment of a carton according to the invention, wherein both the outer packaging body and the inner chamber have a rectangular cross-section. The blank 1 basically consists of the components of the outer packaging body 3 and the components of the inner chamber 5. The components of the quadrangular in cross-section outer packaging body 3 comprise a front wall 7, a rear wall 9 and two side walls 11, wherein at the end faces of the front wall 7 and the rear wall 9 opposite a lid member 13 and a bottom member 15 are arranged. At the open end of the cover element 13 and the bottom element 15, a push-in tab 17 is formed in a known manner, which assumes a function when opening or closing the carton. Closure tabs 19 on the transverse sides of the side walls 11 complete the outer packaging body 3 in a known manner.

In addition to the quadrangular cross-section of the outer packaging body used in the preferred embodiment, it is also possible within the scope of the invention to use other cross-sections, e.g. a polygonal cross-section like a hexagon. Furthermore, it is conceivable that the cross section over the entire length of the outer packaging body is not constant.

As a special feature, the side wall lying between the front wall 7 and the rear wall 9 on the cover side of the carton has a tab 21 which comprises three fold lines 20, 22 and 24 and thereby a free end 23. The function of the tab 21 will be explained later in detail. A description of the exact configuration of the cuts and fold lines of the outer packaging body 3 is omitted here, since this is generally known to the skilled person.

At the "end" of the outer packaging body 3 on a longitudinal side of the rear wall 9, a glue flap 25 is arranged over a fold line 26, which marks the transition between the outer packaging body 3 and the inner chamber 5. A rear wall element 29 is formed on the adhesive tab 25 via a fold line 27, on the other longitudinal side of which a first side wall element 33 adjoins via the fold line 31. The front wall element 35 adjoins the first side wall element 33 via the fold line 34, wherein in the exemplary embodiment shown, the front wall element 35 is interrupted by a first recess 37. The second side wall element 41 adjoins the front wall element 35 via the fold line 39, and further back wall element 43 via the fold line 42. The short side facing the bottom side has the rear wall element 43 a retaining tab 45, wherein at the transition between the rear wall element 43 and the retaining tab 45, a recess 47 is formed, and the retaining tab 45 has two fold lines 49, wherein the recess 47 extends substantially to the height of the fold line 49.

The mode of operation of the folding box according to the invention will be described in detail on the basis of the sequence of folding on the basis of the following description. The blank 1 of the folding box has a first side or inside and a second side or outside, wherein according to Fig. 1 the first or inside is visible. The non-visible in the present embodiment second or outer side is usually particularly designed, for example coated with a color print visually appealing, and therefore has different physical parameters than the not or hardly treated inside.

First, it should be noted that the components of the inner chamber 5 are folded from the fold line 27 at the fold lines 31, 34, 39, 42 against the folding direction of the outer packaging body 3. Since a product folding box generally has a smooth surface prepared for optimum printing and the inside surface usually facing the inside of the folding box is not specially treated or finished, it is necessary to prepare the folding lines differently depending on the folding direction. In the illustrated embodiment, the fold lines 27, 31, 34, 39 and 42 are prepared by sectioning cuts such that a buckling along the fold line leads to a unique and irreversible folding, ie that bending by 90 ° at the fold line significantly less material stresses causes compared with a fold line without regional cuts. Such preparation of the fold lines as creasing / cutting combination is also necessary because when folding the carton from the prefabricated state of filling with a product clearly defined, if possible right angles must arise, where it matters that the shape of the inner chamber after the unfolding is reasonably constant. Also, the erection force is reduced in such prepared folding lines, whereby the unfolding or erecting the carton is easier.

First, the rear wall member 43 is folded at the fold line 42 on the second side wall member 41, and as mentioned such that in complete refolding the outer surfaces of the carton would come to rest on each other, ie folding "out". Subsequently, the retaining tab 45 is folded at its free end along the folding line 51 on the first or inside of the folding box blank, and then at the fold line 49 on the second or outside of the blank, in both cases by about 90 °. Subsequently, the second Sidewall member 41 is folded at the fold line 39 on the front wall member 35, then applied to the outer surface of the free end of the retaining tab 45 adhesive and the free end of the retaining tab 45 bonded to the corresponding portion of the front wall member 35. After unfolding on the outer surface of the blank at the fold lines 34 and 31 and after applying adhesive to the now outwardly facing surface of the rear wall member 43, this is glued to the rear wall member 29, so that a substantially rectangular cavity, the hollow inner chamber 5, is formed ,

Subsequently, the outer packaging body 3 can now be prepared so that an assembly of the two main components of the carton according to the invention can take place. For this purpose, first the tab 21 is bent at the fold lines 20 and 22 on the inner surface of the carton blank, then the free end 23 at the fold line 24 on the second or outside of the carton blank. Then the free end 23 is glued with its inside on the surface of the side wall 11, in such a way that after gluing the distance between the fold line 24 and the fold line 18 substantially corresponds to the distance between the fold lines 20 and 22. Compliance with these dimensions is important because at parallelogrammartiger unfolding of the tab 21, a hollow body is to be formed, which cooperates with closed carton with the inner chamber 3 such that a befindliches inside the inner chamber 3 product are held on the formed on the tab 21 cavity can.

Subsequently, the side wall 11 can be folded onto the front wall 7, namely, as in a conventional carton on the inside of the outer packaging body 3. After this folding "inward" and the front wall 7 can be folded on the other side wall 11 and then According to the further side wall 11 on the rear wall 9. After folding the rear wall 9 along the fold line 26 on the adhesive flap 25 and after applying adhesive to the outside of the adhesive flap 25 and on the relative to the inner chamber 5 outwardly facing surfaces of the front wall member 35 of the inner chamber 5 can now take place the bonding of the inner chamber 5 with the outer packaging body 3. In this case, the adhesive flap 25 is bonded to the inside of the side wall 11 at its free longitudinal side, and also the outwardly facing surfaces of the front wall member 35 with the inwardly facing surface of the front wall 7. In the illustrated embodiment, the first recess 37 and the second recess 8 directly to each other or on top of each other.

The now present state represents the so-called prefabricated state of the carton according to the invention, i. In this condition, the carton is pressed flat with its ends open. It can now be brought from the carton manufacturer to the customer where it is unfolded, filled with one or more product and sealed.

In the simple unfolding of the prefabricated folding box of the present invention, it can be seen, when looking from the bottom or from the lid into the folding box that a holding web is formed in the interior of the inner chamber, which can hold this with appropriate size of the product in the inner chamber. A similar function takes on the cover side, the tab 21 which can be folded parallelogram inwardly on the upper open end of the inner chamber 5. Thus, an elongated, located in the inner chamber 5 product no longer fall out, provided that the cross sections at the end points of the inner chamber 5 are dimensioned in a suitable manner. The further closing of the carton is carried out according to a known pattern by unfolding the lid or bottom elements 13, 15 and by appropriate closing by inserting the tuck 17 in the slots provided.

Those skilled in the art will recognize that the variability of the present invention with respect to the inner chamber 5 is that by the width of the adhesive flap 25 and the freely selectable bond exactly one outer surface of the inner chamber 5, so either the front wall member 35 (as in the illustrated embodiment) or the Side wall elements 33 or 41, with the corresponding opposite inner surfaces of the outer packaging body 3, the inner chamber 5 can be arranged largely arbitrarily in the interior of the outer packaging body 3. In this case, a correct folding of the inner chamber 5 in the prefabricated state is always possible. The necessary with known cartons minimum distances due to bonding can be disregarded.

With the object according to the invention a folding box was provided with an inner chamber, wherein the inner chamber can be arranged variably within the entire inner volume of the outer packaging body without minimum distances, in which only a minimum amount of adhesive surface is required and in which a product located in the inner chamber safely stored and is held.

Claims (8)

1. Folding box for storing and presenting products, comprising
   an outer packaging body (3) having a front wall (7), a rear wall (9), at least two side walls (11), a lid element (13) and a bottom element (15), and
   a hollow inner chamber (5) of rectangular cross section which is arranged in the interior of the outer packaging body (3), is formed by a front wall element (35), a rear wall element (29, 43) and two side wall elements (33, 41), and in which a product is held securely when the folding box is in the closed state,
   the folding box being formed from a single-piece blank (1) which comprises a first side or inner side as well as a second side or outer side, and the outer packaging body (3) and the inner chamber (5) being bonded to one another,
   the width of the inner chamber (5) being less than the width of the outer packaging body (3) in such a way that between at least one side wall (11) in the interior of the outer packaging body (3) and at least one side wall element (33, 41) of the inner chamber a void is formed,
   only one of the outer faces of the inner chamber elements, which consists of a front wall element (35) and side wall elements (33, 41), being bonded at least in part to only one of the inner faces of the outer packaging body (3),
   characterised in that
   the inner chamber (5) is formed by folding up the front wall element (35), the rear wall element (29, 43) and the side wall elements (33, 41) onto the second or outer side of the blank (1).
2. Folding box according to claim 1, characterised in that the outer packaging body (3) has a rectangular or polygonal cross section.
3. Folding box according to either claim 1 or claim 2, characterised in that on the rear wall element (43) of the inner chamber (5) a retaining tab (45) is formed which can be bonded to the front wall element (35) in such a way that, in the folded-up state, a retaining web is formed which extends through the inner chamber (5).
4. Folding box according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the front wall element (35) of the inner chamber (5) comprises a first opening (37).
5. Folding box according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the front wall (7) of the outer packaging body (3) comprises a second opening (8).
6. Folding box according to claim 3 and claim 4, characterised in that the first and second openings (37, 8) are superposed at least in part in the folded-up state.
7. Folding box according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that on at least one side wall (11) of the outer packaging body (3) a tab (21) is formed which comprises three parallel fold lines (20, 22, 24), the tab (21), in the folded-up state of the folding box, being folded in such a way that the free end (23) of the tab (21) is bonded at least in part to the inner side of the side wall (11), thus forming a cuboid-shaped cavity which cooperates with the inner chamber (5) in such a way that a product located in the inner chamber (5) is held therein.
8. Folding box according to any one of the preceding claims, characterised in that the void between a side wall (11) of the outer packaging body (3) and a side wall face (33, 41) of the inner chamber (5) is less than 8 mm.

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