HRP20010806A2 - Screw cap with sealing disk - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a cap (40) with sealing disk which can be positioned on, and notably screwed onto, the opening of a container (10). The sealing disk consists of several layers. The upper layers (24) are designed to remain in the cap when the container is opened while the lower layers (21, 22, 23) are sealed to the opening of the container. The upper layers can be used to reclose the container and are not glued in the screw cap. When the container is opened for the first time the upper layers are lifted vertically upwards by the lower layers, which prevents damage to the top side of said lower layers.

Description

The invention relates to a screw cap with a sealing plate for closing a container, for use in containers with an opening limited by a wide edge, wherein the seal consists of several layers, of which the lowest layers seal the opening of the container before opening and are detachably connected to the upper layers , and whereby these upper layers can temporarily close the opening of the container again.

When closing a container, it is often desirable or even required that the opening of the container be equipped with a plate seal, which seals the contents, e.g. liquid, but also substances such as foodstuffs. There are several reasons for requiring such sealing. First of all, the content should be protected from external influences, for example against the influence of water vapor or oxygen, and among other things, the content should preserve its aroma. Another reason lies in the case of aggressive content, where the greatest possible protection against leakage should be achieved. Finally, this kind of sealing can protect the originality of the filling in the store, because the user can immediately recognize if someone has done something with the contents of the container before him. and stable closure next to the foil. When using for the first time, the user destroys the foil to get to the contents, and then closes the container (if he has not used up the entire contents of the container) using a screw cap, which can temporarily close the opened contents in a correspondingly shorter period of time.

When closing a container, it is often desirable or even required that the opening of the container be equipped with a plate seal, which seals the contents, e.g. liquid, but also substances such as foodstuffs.

When closing a container, it is often desirable or even required that the opening of the container be equipped with a plate seal, which seals the contents, e.g. liquid, but also substances such as foodstuffs. There are several reasons for requiring such sealing. First of all, the content should be protected from external influences, for example against the influence of water vapor or oxygen, and among other things, the content should preserve its aroma. Another reason lies in the case of aggressive content, where the greatest possible protection against leakage should be achieved. Finally, this kind of sealing can protect the originality of the filling in the store, because the user can immediately recognize if someone has done something with the contents of the container before him. and stable closure next to the foil. When using for the first time, the user destroys the foil to get to the contents, and then closes the container (if the entire contents of the container have not yet been used) with a screw cap, which can temporarily close the open contents in a correspondingly shorter period of time. If the sealing requirements are only small, as suggested in DE 94 10 934 U1, a cardboard plate can be placed on the opening of the container as a sealing element, or it can possibly be fixed in the lid. By means of a small tab inside the screw cap, the sealing plate can be pushed out, to allow the filling to drain out after unscrewing the screw cap. However, this means that after the first opening, all sealing is lost and, among other things, the filling possibilities are limited to non-critical and insensitive materials. The foil, which seals the contents of the container, is often, as in EP 0 717 710 B1 and DE 39 20 324 A1, applied with the help of induction stamping. To this end, one entire sealing plate is placed, the lower surface of which represents the sealing surface. As a rule, a second layer of aluminum comes over this, which serves to generate heat and transfer it in the induction process and also creates, in certain cases, additional mechanical protection. The second layer is firmly connected to the first and is particularly favorable for heat transfer. Above this aluminum layer, further component parts of the sealing plate are provided, which remain in the same position when the screw cap, or some other cap, is opened.

These additional or upper component parts of the sealing plate are glued into the cover. If such a cap on the cap is unscrewed during the first opening, the torque is automatically transmitted to these upper parts of the sealing plate. These upper parts, therefore, rotate in relation to the opening of the container. The lower parts of the sealing plate are already tightly sealed to the opening of the container and do not turn. In this way, the upper part of the sealing plate is separated from the lower part along a precisely defined plane. The upper part remains in the screw cap, the lower part on the container can only be destroyed by the user.

Here, however, problems arise. In order for the user to be able to remove this lower part with the sealing layer, certain sensitive measures have been taken in this area. For example, according to EP 0 395 660 B1 or EP 0 534 949 B1, it is provided that the upper layer is designed as a folding one, whereby it is partially not glued to the induction layer. This means that the unglued part becomes, of course, very sensitive to the action of some force, also in the sense of rotation, while due to the absence of gluing, it does not offer any resistance to them. However, this can therefore lead to damage or destruction, which gives the impression to the end user that the container closure is faulty or perhaps not sealed, or was not closed properly. In the extreme case, this procedure can actually lead to partial damage to the sealing layer.

In contrast, the task of the present invention is to propose a cap with a sealing plate, in which a protected separation of the sealing components occurs. opening of the cover, and that the highest layers of the sealing plate are not glued to the underside of the cap and can be rotated in relation to it. With this concept, despite a complete deviation from the state of the art, the problem is solved surprisingly successfully. Until now, namely, it has always been assumed that, of course, the cap should always be turned, with the aim of separating the two constituent parts of the sealing plate in question. However, now, quite consciously, the sealing plate is no longer stuck inside the cap, but instead lies free. This leads to the fact that when the cap is turned, the still existing glued part of the upper part of the sealing plate, together with the entire sealing plate, remains motionless and does not follow the rotational movement of the cap. However, this leads to the fact that no damage occurs due to the relative movement of different adjacent layers. The tongues, folds or other skillful solutions on the highest layer of the lower layers of the sealing plate remain completely untouched. The highest part of the sealing plate, which will later play the role of a renewed sealing plate, is simply raised vertically upwards. Vertically upwards in this case is parallel, i.e. exactly in the direction of the axis of the container opening. This lifting occurs so that, on the one hand, the originally existing spring pressure is removed from the cap, so that, on the other hand, a suitable mechanical solution provides a smaller force exactly vertically upwards through the cap, which not only rotates, but also moves. For this movement, a very controlled, light connection is required, which, for example, can be fine-tuned with one separated layer of polymer between the part for repeated sealing and the lower layers of the sealing plate. This connection can be predicted accurately so that it is true, stronger than the transmitted forces and moments of rotation, but does not yield before this influence of vertical forces. This vertical lifting of the upper layers from the lower layers leaves, however, the upper side of the lower layers unaffected. They neither move nor twist sharply with each other, but remain intact.

The user can now take the actions always offered, e.g., lift the partially glued areas, to lift the folds, etc. After that, he can completely remove that lower area from the container. The screw cap now has, as in the State of the Art, a resealing part, which is excellently adapted to the resealing of the container. Now it is no longer important whether and how this resealing part is moved, it is simply screwed back together with the screw cap. Despite the absence of glue, this layer does not fall out of the screw cap, because it is held by mechanical solutions, edges and protrusions inside the cover. It is especially recommended that the sealing plate has the same outer diameter through all layers. In this way, one and the same punching (cutting) machine can be used and only one punching procedure is required. In the state of the art, due to the sensitivity of the upper layers, it was recommended, as in EP 0 697 345 A2, to provide "small lugs" towards the outside on some layers, in order to counteract this phenomenon. example of performance.

Show's:

Sl. 1 schematic cross-section of one cap with sealing plate during opening (not to scale)

Sl. 1 shows the area of the opening 11 of a container 10. It can be a bottle, a bucket with agricultural chemicals, or a sealed container, eg for ground coffee or the like. The opening ends with a wide edge 12. The edge 12 is generally round in shape.

After filling the container and before the first opening, there is a multilayer sealing plate 20 on that opening, which is closed upwards and laterally by a screw cap 40.

Seen from the container, the plate 20 has first a sealing layer 21. After this layer comes an induction layer 22, usually made of aluminum. This induction layer is used by induction in layer 22 so that the obtained heat is transferred to the sealing layer 21 and that it is firmly sealed on the edge 12 of the opening 11 of the container 10, in the process of production, that is, packaging.

After induction layer 22 comes layer 23. With this layer 23, the user is enabled to remove the sealing layer 21 and the induction layer 22, when he wants to reach the contents of the container 10. This layer 23 has for this purpose, for example, tabs towards the outside or one the appropriate grip crease. In Fig. 1 this is shown by one such raised fold. In a completely closed state, this fold naturally lies in the plane of the plate and practically does not take up additional space. Thus, in practice, there is no intermediate space between layer 23 and the layer on the same layer, 24, the so-called to the reclosing part. This part 24 therefore lies directly on the layer 23, or, in a certain case, on the flat fold of the layer 23.

All layers are glued to each other, layers 21, 22 and 23 with layered glue very firmly, because they are no longer needed and do not have to be taken apart. Layers 23 and 24, on the other hand, are connected to each other by an easily separable and easily adjustable bond. When choosing the glue and material for separating layers 23 and 24, care should be taken that, in case of possible separation, this material mostly remains on layer 23. The total thickness of layers 21, 22 and 23 is very small compared to the other dimensions of the container and its opening. Their presence or absence when screwing or putting the cover 40 on the container 10 does not really play a big role. We point out again the fact that Sl. 1 is not at all proportional here. On the threaded cap 40, a fastening device 43 is provided on one side, e.g. an inner cap, which engages with corresponding (not shown) opposite fastening devices on the container 10. It means that the cap 40 It is noticeable, and is outside the state of the art, the free space not only between the top plane of the cap 40 and the fastening device 43 for the sealing plate 20, but this space has one edge 41 inward, that is, it determines one, in relation to that edge 41, protrusion 42. The size ratios are somewhat exaggerated here as well. Also different compared to the state of the art between the sealing plate 20 or the resealing part 24 of the sealing plate 20, on the one hand, and the lower surface of the cover 40, on the other hand, no glued connection is provided. The sealing plate 20, as a whole, can be rotated in relation to the cap 40. The edge 41 is positioned precisely so that the resealing part 24 is placed exactly in the space 42. When screwing the cap 40 onto the container 10, this resealing part 42 comes without problems by light mechanical tightening, or other thermal measures, over the small resistance of the protrusion 41 in that area. Even before opening the container for the first time, the part for resealing 24 is not separated from the lower layers 21, 22 and 23 of the sealing plate 20. They remain together as before. Unlike the screw caps from the State of the art, this does not happen as the torque of the screw cap 40 is transferred to the resealing part 24 and in this way "unscrews" the connection of the resealing part 24 with the lower layers. The re-sealing part 24 simply remains standing and only the missing pressure force from above, in connection with the mechanical influence of the protrusion 41 on the re-sealing part 41 causes the re-sealing part 24 to rise vertically without turning. The sealing part therefore remains in the cap 40, while the lower layers remain on the container 10. The figure schematically shows one phase, in which the separation of layers 23 and 24 took place. Both layers, however, are not mutually rotated, they move away along the axis of the vessel opening. The fold shown begins to straighten; in practice, as a rule, however, manual assistance is required here. This enables the user, after the first opening of the screw cap 40, to have free access to the layer 23, in a way determined there, for example via a tab or folded fold. When he has now disassembled these layers and partially removed the contents of the container 10, the user can use the cap 40 and the part for resealing 24 close the container again. The container is now no longer, admittedly, originally sealed, but for some transitory period of time, closure in this way is possible. When opening, of course, all this can be repeated, due to multiple reuse of the contents of the container. List of marks10 container 23 opening layer 11 container opening 24 resealing part 12 opening edge 40 cap20 sealing plate 41 groove21 sealing layer 42 protrusion22 induction layer 43 fastening device

Claims (6)

1. A screw cap with a sealing plate for closing a container (10) with an opening (11) limited by one wide edge (12), characterized in that - the sealing plate (20) consists of several layers, of which the lowest layers (21, 22, 23) seal the opening (11) of the container (10) before the first - the lowest layers (21, 22, 23) are separable with the highest layers (24) of the gasket (20) - these uppermost layers (24) can form a temporary closure of the opening (11) of the container (10) - the cover (40) has devices (41, 42) for limiting the distance of the highest layers (24) of the sealing plate from the lower side of the cover (40) in case of opening the cover, and - the highest layers (24) of the gasket (20) are rotatable and unglued in relation to the lower side of the cover (40). 2. A cap with a sealing plate according to Claim 1, characterized in that the outer diameter of the sealing plate (20) is the same in all layers (21, 22, 23, 24) and without tongues. 3. A cap with a sealing plate according to Claim 1 or 2, indicated by the fact that it contains, in order to limit the distance of the highest layers (24) of the sealing plate (20), one edge (41) towards the inside and/or one protrusion (41) towards the outside. 4. A cap with a sealing plate according to one of the previous claims, characterized by the fact that between the lower layers (21, 22, 23) and the upper (24) of the sealing plate (20) a certain separation layer is provided, which enables the layers to be separated only by moving them group, without relative rotation. 5. A cap with a sealing plate according to Claim 4, characterized in that the separation layer creates a bond stronger than the separation force created by the torque of the mechanical contact of the upper layer (24). 6. A cap with a sealing plate according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the lower layers (21, 22, 23) on the upper side of the seal (20) have a separation device, in particular a folded crease, which does not protrude beyond the outer diameter of the sealing plate .