JP2006044771A - Plastic bottle container - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a plastic bottle container which is loaded in the horizontally laid posture on a vending machine exclusively made for cans keeping parallel and hardly collapses. <P>SOLUTION: The tubular plastic container has a body part formed continuous with a shoulder part through an upper depressed rib and a bottom part formed continuous with the body part through a bottom depressed rib. A recess is formed on the circumferential face of the body part between the two ribs. A cylindrical face is formed between the shoulder part and the upper receding rib. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2006,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a plastic bottle container, and more particularly to a bottle container for beverages and the like loaded in a vending machine.

  Conventionally, a cylindrical metal can has been generally used as a beverage container used in a vending machine or the like, but recently, a bottle container made of plastic or the like has been used. A bottle container generally consists of a mouth part, a piece part, a body part, and a bottom part, and since the mouth part and the body part have different diameters, the bottle container is placed horizontally into a loading column of a vending machine and a slope plate is placed. When dropped, there is a problem that the container is tilted or inverted and the bottle container is clogged in the column. For this reason, a vending machine having a column exclusively for a bottle container in which the bottle container and the column width are adjusted is used. Further, since the longer the body part, the smaller the inclination of the bottle container, a 500 ml size bottle container is currently used as the mainstream.

  On the other hand, metal cans such as 350 ml have the largest sales volume among various containers filled in vending machines. Therefore, many conventional vending machines have a filling column designed for 350 ml cans, and bottle containers that can fill such 350 ml can columns are desired. The width of a column for a 350 ml can is generally about 140 mm, and a small bottle container having a full injection capacity of about 300 ml is suitable for this width.

  However, since a bottle container having a full capacity of about 300 ml is shorter than a 500 ml container, there is a problem that when the bottle container is placed sideways and filled into a can-dedicated column, the container tends to be inclined and clogged easily.

  In addition, when a bottle container is placed horizontally on a vending machine, the lower container may be crushed by its own weight, and when the next bottle container is loaded on top of such a crushed container, the container is tilted and placed. Cause the column to become clogged.

  In addition, in the case of small bottle containers, even if they are placed horizontally when they are loaded into a can-only column, they may be loaded in a standing state (vertical state), which are also clogged with columns. Cause.

  The present inventors are now dedicated to vending machine cans in a horizontal position while keeping parallel by devising the shape of the container body, even for small plastic bottle containers with a full capacity of about 300 ml. We have obtained knowledge that a container that can be loaded on a column and is not easily crushed can be realized. The present invention is based on this finding.

  Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a plastic bottle container that can be placed horizontally and can be loaded exclusively for a vending machine can and can be easily crushed.

  In the plastic bottle container according to the present invention, the body portion is continuous to the shoulder portion via the upper concave rib, the bottom portion is continuous to the body portion via the lower concave rib, and the two concave rib portions are formed. A cylindrical plastic container in which a hollow portion is provided on the circumferential surface of the trunk portion between the shoulder portion and the upper concave rib, and has a cylindrical surface. Thus, by providing a cylindrical surface between the shoulder portion of the bottle container and the upper concave rib, and providing a portion having a straight side section between the shoulder portion and the upper concave rib, When the container is placed horizontally, the parallelism between the containers will be maintained even if the containers are misaligned, so the bottle container will not tilt or invert in the column of the vending machine. The strength of the container can also be maintained.

  The plastic bottle container according to the present invention will be described in more detail with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a front view of a plastic bottle container of the present invention. The plastic bottle container includes a mouth part 1 for injecting or taking out contents, a body part 3, a shoulder part 2 connecting the mouth part 1 and the body part 3, and a bottom part 4. In addition, on the body part 3 of the bottle container, that is, on the side of the container, concave ribs (upper concave ribs 5 and lower concave ribs 6) are provided at two locations, a portion where the shoulder portion 2 continues and a portion where the bottom portion 4 continues. ing. These two concave ribs are provided to increase the strength of the container. Moreover, in order to raise the intensity | strength of the trunk | drum 3 of a container, the hollow part 10 is provided between these two concave ribs. A cylindrical surface 7 having a predetermined width is provided between the shoulder 2 and the upper concave rib 5. By providing the cylindrical surface at such a position, when the bottle container is placed horizontally and loaded in the column of the vending machine, the containers can be kept parallel even if the container position is shifted. Further, the width of the cylindrical surface 7 (represented by A in FIG. 1) is wider than the width of the upper concave rib 5 (represented by B in FIG. 1), that is, the following formula (I),
A> B (I)
Is preferably satisfied. The concave rib is necessary to maintain the strength of the container, but when the bottle container is placed horizontally on the column in the vending machine, if the bottle containers are slightly displaced, the concave rib of the container on the lower side Since the shoulder part and the bottom part of the container on the upper side fall down, the parallelism between the bottle containers is broken, and the container is clogged. In the present invention, a cylindrical surface is provided between the shoulder and the concave rib, and the width thereof is wider than the width of the concave rib. The shoulder of the upper container is prevented from falling into the concave rib.

In addition, the plastic bottle container of the present invention has two circumferential surfaces (8 and 9) on the body 3, and the circumferential surfaces 8 and 9 are formed by the upper concave rib 5, the recessed portion 10, and And between the recessed portion 10 and the lower concave rib 6. And the width of these circumferential surfaces (represented as C and D in FIG. 1) is wider than the width of the two concave ribs (represented by B and E in FIG. 1), that is, the following formula (II) ,
C + D> B + E (II)
Is preferably satisfied. By providing a cylindrical surface with a width that satisfies the above equation, when the bottle container is placed horizontally on the column in the vending machine, the bottles are loaded in the direction of the bottom of the bottle container (as shown in FIG. 3). In this case, it is possible to maintain the parallelism between the bottles when they are slightly shifted in the right direction in the figure.

In the present invention, any one of the circumferential surfaces (8 or 9) is wider than the width of the two concave ribs, that is, the following formula (III) or (IV):
C ≧ B + E (III)
D ≧ B + E (IV)
Is more preferable. By providing a cylindrical surface that satisfies the above formula (III) or (IV), the parallelism between the bottle containers can be maintained even when the bottle container is displaced in either the mouth direction or the bottom direction. Can do.

Further, in the plastic bottle container according to the present invention, the sum of the widths of the three cylindrical surfaces (7, 8, and 9) is based on the difference between the column passage width G of the vending machine and the total height F of the bottle container. Is large, that is, the following formula (V),
A + C + D> G-F (V)
Is preferably satisfied. For example, a column for a 350 ml can of a vending machine has a column width of about 135 to 145 mm, and a bottle container with a full capacity of 300 ml has a total height of about 125 to 135 mm. Accordingly, when the bottle containers are horizontally loaded on such a column for cans, the bottle containers are shifted from each other by about 20 mm at the maximum. When the positions of the upper bottle container and the lower bottle container are shifted by about 20 mm, in the conventional bottle container, the vicinity of the concave rib of the upper bottle container reaches the shoulder of the lower container as shown in FIG. For this reason, the upper container may become unstable and tilt or invert. In the present invention, as shown in FIG. 3, since the circumferential surface of a predetermined length is provided between the concave rib 4 and the hollow portion 9, the position of the bottle container is shifted by about 20 mm. However, unlike the conventional container, the body part does not fall into the shoulder of the lower container and the container does not tilt. Further, since the concave rib itself is provided at the same position as the conventional container, the strength of the container does not decrease.

  According to the aspect of the present invention, it is preferable that the recessed portion 10 on the circumferential surface of the body portion is provided at odd places on the side surface of the bottle container main body. In the conventional plastic bottle container, in order to improve the side wall strength of the bottle, the side surface of the container is provided with six or eight plane recesses (hereinafter also referred to as a panel part). In the bottle container having such a structure, the strength of the joint portion between the panel portion and the panel portion (hereinafter also referred to as a pillar portion) is lower than the strength of the panel portion. Therefore, when the bottle container is filled in the vending machine, the bottle container may be deformed due to a difference in strength between the pillar portion and the panel portion. In the present invention, as shown in FIG. 4, this panel portion 10 is provided on the side surface of the bottle container at an odd number to prevent the bottle container from being deformed.

  The cross section of the bottle container in the panel portion is a polygon corresponding to the number of panel portions. In the case of an even polygon such as a hexagon or an octagon, another vertex is present at a position facing a certain vertex. In the bottle container having such a cross-sectional shape, when the bottle container is horizontally placed and stacked, the pillar portions are in contact with each other, so that the container is remarkably deformed. On the other hand, as shown in FIG. 5, by using an odd square, there is a side at a position facing a certain vertex. Thus, when there are an odd number of panel portions, a side (panel portion 10) exists opposite to the vertex of the polygon (pillar portion 11). Therefore, by using a bottle container having such an odd-angled cross section, the pillars do not come into contact with each other even when they are placed horizontally, so that there is no bias in strength and the container is difficult to deform. Further, by providing the panel portions at odd places as described above, since the bottle containers are not stacked at the positions where the recessed portions face each other, the difference in body diameter is reduced and the column can be stably filled.

  In this invention, it is preferable that the hollow part of the trunk | drum circumferential surface is provided in 7 or 9 places on the side surface of a bottle container main body. By setting the cross section of the body of the bottle container to be a 7 or 9 polygon, the position facing the apex is almost the center of the facing side, so that the strength is further improved.

  In a column for a bottle container of a vending machine that is normally used, the column width is substantially constant, and the size of the usable bottle container (the total height of the bottle container) is limited to about 130 to 138 mm. Therefore, in consideration of the variation error at the time of molding the bottle container, the center value of the size of the bottle container that can be used in the vending machine is preferably 132 to 136 mm ± 2 mm.

  Further, the outer diameter of the bottle container body is preferably φ66.0 mm ± 0.5 mm in consideration of variation errors during container molding. If the outer diameter of the barrel is φ67 mm or more, there will be a problem of clogging in the column of the vending machine or in the vicinity of the discharge port. If it is φ65 mm or less, two or three bottle containers will be discharged from the discharge port. The problem that it ends up occurs.

  The plastic bottle container according to the present invention can be manufactured by manufacturing a preform by a known injection molding or extrusion molding and molding the preform by a known method such as stretch blow molding. The bottle container may be made of a thermoplastic resin such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), but is not limited thereto.

  Further, the preform may have a multilayer structure, and an oxygen absorption layer may be provided in the intermediate layer. As the intermediate layer, a structure in which a gas barrier resin layer such as saponified ethylene-vinyl acetate copolymer (hereinafter abbreviated as EVOH) or MXD6 (polymetaxylylene adipamide) is laminated can be employed. In the case of blend molding of two or more synthetic resins, the gas barrier property can be improved by, for example, blending a gas barrier resin such as MXD6 with PET and injection molding the preform. Also, oxygen barrier properties can be improved by blending an oxygen absorbent in addition to the synthetic resin into PET.

  Furthermore, by depositing an inorganic oxide such as silica or alumina or amorphous carbon on the inner wall of the bottle container, the gas barrier property can be improved while maintaining transparency. When coating means are used, gas barrier properties are improved by coating thermosetting cross-linked coating films of aromatic polyhydric epoxy compounds reacted with metaxylenediamine and epichlorohydrin and polyhydric amines, EVOH, etc. Can be made. When EVOH is coated, gas barrier properties are reduced due to moisture absorption. Therefore, it is preferable to coat a moisture-proof resin such as a polyolefin resin thereon. Any one kind of such gas barrier property improving means may be used, but the gas barrier property can be further improved by combining two or more means.

  Hereinafter, the plastic bottle container of the present invention will be described more specifically with reference to Examples and Comparative Examples, but the present invention is not limited to these.

Example 1
A pull foam made of PET resin is manufactured by injection molding, and blow molded to provide a total height of 132 mm, a body diameter of 66 mm, and an upper cylindrical surface of the upper concave rib (corresponding to 7 in FIG. 1) having a width of 4 mm. A plastic bottle container 1 (full capacity 300 ml) was obtained. The width of the upper concave rib was 4 mm, and the width of the lower concave rib was 6 mm.

Example 2
By using the same preform as in Example 1 and performing blow molding by changing the shape of the mold, the overall height is 132 mm, the trunk diameter is 66 mm, the upper cylindrical surface (width 4 mm) of the upper concave rib, and the upper concave A plastic bottle container 2 (full capacity 300 ml) having a cylindrical surface on the lower rib (corresponding to 8 in FIG. 1) with a width of 6 mm and a cylindrical surface on the upper side of the lower concave rib (corresponding to 9 in FIG. 1) with a width of 6 mm. Obtained.

Example 3
By using the same preform as in Example 2 and performing blow molding by changing the shape of the mold, the overall height is 132 mm, the trunk diameter is 66 mm, the upper cylindrical surface of the upper concave rib (width 4 mm), and the upper concave A plastic bottle container 3 (full capacity 300 ml) having a cylindrical surface (corresponding to 8 in FIG. 1) width of 10 mm on the lower rib and a cylindrical surface (corresponding to 9 in FIG. 1) on the upper side of the lower concave rib is 10 mm. It was.

Comparative Example 1
By using the same preform as in Example 1 and performing blow molding by changing the shape of the mold, the overall height is 132 mm, the trunk diameter is 66 mm, the upper cylindrical surface of the upper concave rib is not provided, and the upper part Plastic bottle container 4 having a cylindrical surface below the concave rib (corresponding to 8 in FIG. 1) of 4 mm in width and a cylindrical surface above the concave concave rib (corresponding to 9 in FIG. 1) of 4 mm (full capacity 300 ml) Got.

  The bottle containers 1 to 4 obtained above were filled with 280 ml of water, and then the cap was closed and sealed, and a shrink film was attached to the side of the bottle container. About the obtained bottle container, the bottle container was thrown into the vending machine so that it might be placed horizontally on a column for a 350 ml can having a width of 146 mm, and the degree of clogging of the bottle container and the deformation rate of the bottle container were evaluated. The evaluation was performed by setting the amount of one input to 16 and repeating this 10 times. In addition, about the bottle container crushed during injection | pouring, it replaced | exchanged for the new thing and injected | thrown-in. The degree of clogging of the bottle containers was the number of times that column clogging occurred in a total of 160 bottles, and the deformation occurrence rate was the number of bottle containers deformed in a total of 160 bottles.

Furthermore, the same evaluation as described above was performed using a vending machine for a 350 ml can column having a width of 137 mm. The results were as shown in Table 1.

  As is clear from Table 1, by providing the upper circumferential surface of the upper concave rib on the bottle container, the alignment (parallelism) when the bottle container is stacked horizontally is improved, and clogging in the column is prevented. Reduced. Further, by increasing the width of the two cylindrical surfaces provided between the upper and lower concave ribs, the alignment of the bottle containers is improved and the collapse of the bottle containers is also reduced.

The front view of the plastic bottle container of this invention. The state figure at the time of carrying out the horizontal loading of the conventional bottle container on the column for cans. The state figure at the time of carrying horizontally the plastic bottle container of this invention on the column for cans. The front view of the plastic bottle container which is another aspect of this invention. AA sectional drawing of the bottle container shown in FIG.

Explanation of symbols

1. Mouth 2. Shoulder 3. 3. Body part Bottom 5 5. Upper concave rib 6. Lower concave rib Circumferential surface 8. Circumferential surface 9. Circumferential surface 10. Indentation (panel part)
11. Pillar part

Claims (8)

  The shoulder is continuous with the body through the upper concave rib, the bottom is continuous with the body through the lower concave rib, and a hollow portion is formed on the circumferential surface of the body between the two concave ribs. A cylindrical plastic container provided, wherein the plastic bottle container has a cylindrical surface between the shoulder and the upper concave rib.   The plastic bottle container according to claim 1, wherein a width of the cylindrical surface is wider than a width of the upper concave rib.   3. The plastic according to claim 1, further comprising a cylindrical surface between the upper concave rib and a concave portion provided on a circumferential surface of the body portion, and between the concave portion and the lower concave rib. Bottle container.   The sum of the width of the cylindrical surface between the upper concave rib and the concave portion provided on the circumferential surface of the trunk portion and the width of the cylindrical surface between the concave portion and the lower concave rib is the upper concave. The plastic bottle container according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the plastic bottle container is larger than a sum of a width of the rib and a width of the lower concave rib.   The width of the cylindrical surface between the upper concave rib and the hollow portion provided on the circumferential surface of the trunk portion is equal to or greater than the sum of the width of the upper concave rib and the width of the lower concave rib, or the hollow The width | variety of the cylindrical surface between a part and the said lower concave rib is the sum of the width | variety of the said upper concave rib, and the width | variety of a lower concave rib, The plastics of any one of Claims 1-4 Bottle container.   The width of the cylindrical surface between the shoulder and the upper concave rib, the width of the cylindrical surface between the upper concave rib and the concave portion provided on the circumferential surface of the trunk portion, and the concave portion The sum of the width of the cylindrical surface between the lower concave rib and the lower concave rib is larger than the difference between the passage width of the column of the vending machine and the total height of the plastic container. Item 1. A plastic bottle container according to item 1.   The plastic bottle container of any one of Claims 1-6 by which the hollow part of the said trunk | drum circumferential surface is provided in the odd-numbered location in the side surface of a bottle container main body.   The plastic bottle container according to any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the overall height of the container is 132 to 136 mm ± 2 mm, and the outer diameter of the container body is φ66.0 mm ± 0.5 mm.

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