FR2857939A1 - Plastic packaging film has cuts along edges that form notches to facilitate removal from wrapped items - Google Patents

Abstract

The film (10), of either thermo-shrink or stretch variety, is made with a series of evenly-spaced cuts along its edges (11) that form notches (15) round the circumference of an end aperture that facilitate removal of the film from wrapped items such as cartons (31, 32). The cuts are 5 - 10 mm deep and spaced at intervals of 5 - 15 cm.

Description

PACKAGING FILM

  The present invention relates to a packaging film, such as a heat-shrinkable or stretchable film, for wrapping goods to be wrapped.

  Packaging films are commonly used in many industries, and particularly in the consumer products industry. Merchandise for commercial sale is often transported in batches consisting of a plurality of sales units of a product for sale. A package makes it possible to protect and hold together these units, such as cartons, cans or jars, for example. Similarly, the bottles are often sold in packs containing generally six bottles held together by a packaging film.

  Such batch packaging is known as wrapping. The wrapping 15 consists of wrapping a batch of goods with a heat-shrinkable or stretchable plastic film. The peculiarity of this packaging is that the sides of the lot are not generally welded and leave the goods visible. The unwelded plastic on the sides of the lot is usually called the lunula.

  A lunula is defined as a non-convex flat figure limited by two circular arcs of the same ends. When wrapping with a heat-shrinkable plastic film, the lunula is often blistered.

  A heat-shrinkable film has the characteristic of shrinking under the effect of heat and thus molding the object it surrounds. Depending on the film compositions, the shrinkage may take place in one direction or in two perpendicular directions by a rise in temperature. Stretchable film has cold elasticity properties that allow it to be stretched around the object to be packaged without temperature rise. The film is held by welding.

  A heat-shrinkable plastic film may be obtained from a polyester, such as high or low density polyethylene, polypropylene or polyvinyl chloride (PVC). Stretchable plastic film can be obtained from linear polyethylene or polyvinyl chloride (PVC).

  These plastic packaging films are resistant, easy to apply and adjustable to any type of object to be packaged regardless of its shape or size. However, these packaging films are not easy to tear and unpacking goods surrounded by such a film often requires the use of a tool, such as a cutter for example.

  In order to facilitate the tearing of the film for the manual unpacking of the goods, several techniques have been proposed. A first solution is to add additives to the chemical composition of the film to create an orientation that weakens the film in one direction. This solution, however, adds a cost to the manufacture of the film. A film orientation can also be obtained by microperforations that provide linearity in tearing the film. With these solutions, the propagation of the tear is facilitated by the linearity of the film, but the initial tear primer remains difficult.

  Another solution is to weaken the film on certain areas corresponding to the gripping areas, for example between four heads of bottles. The embrittlement can be achieved by microperforations located in certain areas of the film. This solution, however, complicates the manufacture of the packaging film and requires a registration of the film with respect to the product to be packaged, which complicates the industrial packaging process by requiring the use of packaging machines with registration. In addition, the initial tear primer is made with the fingers and not with the hand and the opening of the lot is generally partial.

  Another known solution for facilitating the unpacking of goods packaged with a film is to add a tear tape in the packaging film. This solution, comfortable for the user, adds a significant cost to the film, on the one hand because of the addition of an element and on the other hand by requiring the use of a packaging machine with registration to position the ribbon 25 correctly.

  There is therefore a need to simplify the tearing of packaging films.

  The invention accordingly proposes a packaging film having an edge having notches, said notches being distributed along said edge.

  According to one feature, the film has notches on each edge.

  According to one feature, two consecutive notches of an edge are spaced 5 to 15 cm apart.

  According to another characteristic, the notches have a depth of 5 to 10 mm.

  According to one characteristic, the notches are perpendicular to the edge of the film.

  According to the embodiments, the film is of the heat-shrinkable or stretchable type. The invention also relates to a batch of goods packaged by wrapping a plastic film surrounding said batch, an edge of the film defining a lunula on an edge of the lot, the lunula with notches.

  According to one characteristic, two consecutive notches of a lunula are spaced apart from 5 to 15 cm.

  Depending on the application, the commodity package includes a pack of bottles or a set of boxes.

  The invention further relates to a method of packaging a batch of goods with a plastic film comprising the steps of: - producing notches distributed along an edge of the film; - bundling the batch of goods with the film.

  According to one embodiment, the wrapping step comprises a heat shrink film step.

  According to one embodiment, the film is a stretch-type film and the wrapping step comprises a soldering step.

  According to one embodiment, the film is unrolled for wrapping, the notches being made continuously on a film return roller.

  According to another embodiment, the film is unwound for wrapping, the notches being made in series on a portion of the film laid flat on a cutting area.

  According to one embodiment, the notches are made on each edge of the film.

  According to one characteristic, the notches are made with a spacing of 25 to 15 cm between two consecutive notches.

  According to one characteristic, the notches are made with a depth of 5 to 10 mm.

  According to one characteristic, the notches are made perpendicular to the edge of the film.

  Other features and advantages of the invention will appear on reading the following detailed description of embodiments of the invention, given by way of example only and with reference to the drawings which show: FIG. 1, a diagram packaging film according to the invention; - Figure 2, a lot of goods packed with a film according to the invention.

  According to the invention, there is provided a packaging film with notches on at least one edge. These notches are tear primers that facilitate the initial tear. The notches are deep enough to initiate the tear movement and distributed along the film to allow the package to be torn by hand.

  The packaging film proposed by the invention can be used for wrapping 10 lots of goods with a packaging machine (a shrink wrapper) without marking. Thus, an easily tearable packaging film can be used for wrapping without significant additional cost.

  According to the invention, a bundle of packaged goods having notches in the shrink wraps is thus obtained. These notches are arranged so as to allow one edge of the package to be grasped fully between two of said notches, which allows easy tearing on either side of the gripping.

  Referring to Figure 1, a plastic film 10 is unwound. This film 10 can be 20 of heat-shrinkable or stretchable type depending on the applications. It also has a width adapted to the size of the batch of goods to be packaged. We define a longitudinal x direction of the film 10 which constitutes the direction of unwinding of the film and a transverse direction y of the film 10 which constitutes the cutting direction of the film.

  Such a film 10 is intended to be placed in a packaging machine, called a wrapping machine. Such a machine makes it possible to surround a batch of goods with the film 10, to cut the film from edge to edge and to secure the film on the batch. If the film is a heat-shrinkable plastic, the shrinkwrapper comprises or is connected to heat treatment means such as an oven. The plastic is then molded onto the batch after thermal shrinkage. If the film is a stretchable plastic, the shrinkwrapper comprises or is connected to solder means. The stretch film is then molded onto the batch after welding of each cutting end.

  According to the invention, the film 10 has notches 15 on an edge 11, and possibly on each edge 11, 11 '. These notches 15, 15 'are intended to constitute tearing primers of the package when the film 10 has been used for wrapping a batch of goods.

  The notches 15 are distributed along the edge 11, i.e. the notches 15 are repeated throughout the edge of the film. The spacing between two consecutive notches may depend on the applications, the type of batch to be packaged and the method used for wrapping.

  The distribution of the notches 15 on an edge 11 of the film may be smooth, i.e. the distribution of the notches may have a regular pattern which repeats with a spacing between two consecutive notches which may be constant or variable. The distribution of the notches 15 may be linear, that is, the spacing between the notches varies linearly. The distribution of the notches 15 along an edge 11 of the film may also be random, with random spacing between the notches.

  Advantageously, this spacing must be wide enough to allow one hand to be positioned between two slots, not necessarily consecutive, and small enough that the socket easily stretches the notch and prolongs the transverse tearing of the packaging film. For example, a spacing of 5 to 15 cm between two consecutive notches fulfills these conditions.

  Detail A of Figure 1 illustrates a notch 15 in an edge of the film 10. Such a notch has a notch depth L of 5 to 10 mm and a thickness e substantially zero. The notches can be made perpendicularly to the edge 11, but can also be skewed without losing their tear initiation function of the film.

  According to the invention, a method of packaging a batch of products is proposed. Such a method includes a step of making notches on an edge of a packaging film and a step of bundling the batch of goods with such a film.

  The notches 15, 15 'can be made by any appropriate means. For example, as illustrated in FIG. 1, the plastic film 10 is unwound longitudinally (x) and passes through a return roller 20 whose axis is oriented in the transverse direction (y) of the film. A cutting roll 25 is disposed opposite the return roller 20 and rotates in a direction opposite to the direction of rotation of the return roller. The film 10 is thus clamped between the two rollers 20 and 25, while unfolding.

  Detail B of FIG. 1 shows that the cutting roller 25 has protruding blades 26 which cut the edge 11 of the film 10 to form notches 15. The size of the blades 26 is adapted as a function of the depth L of the notches to be produced. .

  Other embodiments of the notches can be envisaged. For example, the notches can be produced in series on portions of film laid flat on a cutting area.

  Figure 2 illustrates a batch of goods packaged by the process according to the invention by means of the film 10 according to the invention. In the example of Figure 2, the batch consists of two cardboard boxes 31, 32 packaged, but could as well be a pack of bottles, a lot of cans or jars for example.

  The batch of goods 31, 32 is packaged by wrapping a plastic film 10, the edges 11 of the film defining lunules 33 on the edges of the batch. In particular, in the case of the use of a heat-shrinkable plastic film, the lunules 33 have blisters. In such a case, the initial tear on the edges of the package 30 is very difficult.

  According to the invention, the notches 15 made in the edge 11 of the film are transferred to a lunula 33 of the packaged batch and allow to initiate the tear 20 from the lunules 33 to facilitate unpacking. Indeed, when a user enters a lunule 33 full hand, it will have notches 15 on both sides of his hand. The hand may possibly cover a notch 15, but there will nevertheless be on both sides of the hand, two notches sufficiently close to the edge of the hand. These notches 15 must allow, by a limited pulling force perpendicular to the plane of the film, to prolong the tearing of the film 10 and allow easy unpacking.

  Of course, the present invention is not limited to the embodiments described by way of example with reference to the figures; in particular, the spacing between two consecutive notches or the depth of the notches may vary or be constant along an edge portion of the film. If notches 15, 15 'are formed on each edge 11, 11' of the film 10, the depth L of the notches and the spacing between the notches are not necessarily the same on each edge.

Claims (20)

  A packaging film (10) having an edge (11) having notches (15), said notches (15) being distributed along said edge (11).   2. Packaging film according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises notches (15, 15 ') on each edge (11, 11').   3. Packaging film according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that two notches (15) consecutive edge (11) are spaced from 5 to 15 cm.   4. Packaging film according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the notches (15) have a depth of 5 to 10 mm.   5. Packaging film according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the notches (15) are perpendicular to the edge (11) of the film (10).   6. Packaging film according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that it is of the heat-shrinkable type.   7. Packaging film according to one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that it is of the stretchable type.   8. Lot of goods (30) wrapped by wrapping a plastic film (10) surrounding said lot, an edge (11) of the film defining a lunula (33) on an edge of the lot, the lunula (33) having notches (15).   Pack of packaged goods according to claim 8, characterized in that two consecutive notches (15) of a lunula (33) are spaced 5 to 15 cm apart.   10. Lot of packaged goods according to one of claims 8 to 9, characterized in that it comprises a pack of bottles.   11. Lot of packaged goods according to one of claims 8 to 9, characterized in that it comprises a set of boxes.   12. A method of packaging a batch of goods (30) with a plastic film comprising the steps of: - producing notches (15) distributed along an edge (11) of the film (10); - bundling the batch of goods with the film.   13. The method of claim 12, characterized in that the wrapping step comprises a heat shrink film step (10).   14. The method of claim 12, characterized in that the film (10) is a stretchable type film and in that the wrapping step comprises a welding step.   15. Method according to one of claims 12 to 14, characterized in that the film is unrolled for wrapping, the notches (15) being made continuously on a film return roller.   16. Method according to one of claims 12 to 14, characterized in that the film is unwound for wrapping, the notches (15) being produced in series on a portion of the film laid flat on a cutting area.   17. Method according to one of claims 12 to 16, characterized in that the notches (15, 15 ') are formed on each edge (11, 11') of the film (10).   18. Method according to one of claims 12 to 17, characterized in that the notches (15) are formed with a spacing of 5 to 15 cm between two consecutive notches.   19. Method according to one of claims 12 to 18, characterized in that the notches (15) are made with a depth of 5 to 10 mm.   20. Method according to one of claims 12 to 19, characterized in that the notches (15) are made perpendicularly to the edge of the film.