TWI450846B - A pack for smoking articles - Google Patents

Description

Packaging of smoking articles

The invention relates to the packaging of smoking articles, particularly but not exclusively to cigarettes.

Packaging for making smoking articles such as cigarettes using a blank is well known, for example, using cardboard, which includes front and rear panels joined by opposing side panels, bottom panels, and a lid. The cover can be assembled in a manner known as a top flip configuration.

One problem with such conventional packaging is that the panels, particularly the front and rear panels, may undesirably bend (especially when the texture of the cardboard is parallel to the length of the package). It may also be desirable to use thinner cardboard to make the package to save costs, but it may be perceived to the user that the use of thinner paperboard is fragile and the same thinner paperboard is more difficult to use for large packaging. Limits the choice of its packaging shape.

It is known to provide an internal structure in a conventional top-turn package to provide a blockage against which the lid can be expanded in its closed position with its periphery to be in close proximity to the remainder of the package. It has been proposed in US-A-5,964,345 to provide ribs on the surface of the internal structure which are in close proximity to the inner surface of the front panel of the package. However, this configuration is not desirable in that it exhausts the space inside the container and increases the cost of the overall material of the package.

According to the present invention, there is provided a package for a smoking article comprising front and rear panels joined by opposite side panels, a bottom panel and a lid, wherein at least one of the panels comprises a plurality of transverse stripes having a thickness greater than The thickness of the area between the stripes.

The top panel can include a cover. The stripes may be formed around the exterior of the package, and both the front and rear panels may include the lateral stripes.

Preferably, the strips may be raised during the manufacture of the blank or in a pre-manufacturing step in the process of packaging the smoking article into the package.

The package may be made of a sheet material that includes corrugations formed in the thickness of the sheet material. At least one of the corrugations may be formed on the cover.

The invention also includes a blank for making a package for smoking articles, comprising front and rear panel portions, a bottom panel portion and side panel portions, and a portion forming a cover, wherein at least one of the panel portions comprises Most transverse stripes have a thickness greater than the thickness of the area between the stripes.

The invention further includes a method of making a package for a smoking article using a blank, the blank comprising a front and rear flat portion, a bottom flat portion and a side flat portion, and a portion forming a cover, the method being included A plurality of lateral stripes are formed in at least one of the equal plate portions, the thickness of which is greater than the thickness of the region between the stripes.

The method can include embossing the blank to form the transverse stripes.

The method can utilize a method in which a plurality of slabs are transported from a blanking cassette to form a staggered state to form the streaks, and the slabs are transported to a cigarette packaging machine to form a package filled with cigarettes. Work.

As used herein, the term "smoking article" includes cocoa-smoking products such as cigarettes, cigars, and cigarillos, whether based on tobacco, tobacco derivatives, expanded tobacco, reconstituted tobacco, or tobacco substitutes. Made of non-heat-burning products. The smoking article may be provided with a filter to filter the airflow drawn by the smoker.

Referring to Figures 1 to 8, a top flip package 1 for cigarettes is formed by a blank shown in Fig. 8, and includes a front panel 2, a rear panel 3, side panels 4, 5, and a The bottom plate 6 and a hinge cover 7, all of which are formed by folding and adhering selected portions of the blank shown in Fig. 8, are formed using a cardboard stacked sheet material such as cardboard.

The package has a longitudinally extending beveled edge portion 8 along the junction between the side panels 4, 5 and the front and rear panels 2, 3.

The cover 7 has an inclined side 9 and a front edge 10 which are lower than the hinge line 11 of the cover in the closed position and the upper edges 12, 13 of the front and side panels 2, 4, 5 Tilted accordingly to provide a tight fit when the lid is closed. As shown in Figures 2 and 3, in this example the package contains twenty cigarettes 14, and as is well known in the art, the tilting arrangement of the lid 7 provides an improved access to the cigarette when the lid is opened. The way.

An internal structure 15 such as a cardboard stack of sheet material is mounted on the upper portion of the container opening, for example by adhesive means, and includes a reentry portion 16 to provide the user with the cigarette. The inner structure 15 has a beveled edge 8 that can restrict the interior of the front and side panels 2, 4, 5 and adjacent to the front panel as a blockage against the blockage, the cover can be In the closed position, its peripheral surface is expanded to be in close proximity to the front and side panels 2, 4, 5. The internal structure 15 includes an associated flange 17 that acts as a stopper to maintain its position when the cover 7 is closed.

The front and rear panels 2, 3 are provided with lateral stripes 18 which can be formed by a detailed description of the projections of the blanks.

The transverse strips 18 include the corrugations described in Figure 9. The strip 18 has a thickness t which is greater than the thickness r of the region 19 between the strips 18. While other techniques may be used, it is exemplified that the region 19 may be formed by means of a projection that compresses the paperboard material along the region 19, for example with a blunt knife for characterization or slamming.

In the depicted example, the corrugations 18 extend across the full width of the front and rear panels 2, 3 and have the same width w as shown in FIG. In this example, the regions 19 between the corrugations 18 are straight and parallel to each other. Further, such a corrugation 18A is provided in front of and behind the cover 7 as shown in Figs. 4 and 5.

The corrugations 18 function to harden and strengthen the front and rear panels 2, 3 of the package, with the result that the blank can be formed using a thinner stack of paperboard materials without compromising the stiffness of the combination package. This can reduce costs, not only for the cost of materials used, but also for transportation costs, as it reduces the weight of the package. This corrugation 18A exhibits the same function for the cover 7.

Similarly, the hardening provided by the corrugations 18 renders the package less susceptible to the texture of the cardboard stack, so the package can be placed longitudinally or laterally without significantly changing the stiffness of the front and rear panels 2, 3. .

Moreover, with the described corrugations 18, the package can be made wider than a current package at a particular board thickness, thereby giving the designer the freedom to design a novel package design.

In addition, the corrugations 18, 18A provide a tactile grasping surface on the exterior of the package that assists the user in grasping the package and opening the cover 7.

The paper card used in the package 1 may have a weight of 180-300 g/squ.m, for example 280 g/squ.m, but with the provision of the strip 18, a lighter material such as 215 g/squ.m may be used. Or even 200g/squ.m. The lighter the weight, the worse the hardness of the paper card, but can be improved by providing the strip 18. The paper card is generally about 0.3 mm thick, and the depth at which the stripes 18 are formed may be 50% of the thickness of the unembossed paper card.

A method of encapsulating a cigarette in the package will now be described with reference to Figs. 10 and 11. A cassette 20 as shown in Fig. 10 contains a plurality of blanks 1' which are substantially as described in Fig. 8 but without corrugations 18. The slab can be pre-printed and pre-formed into fold lines using methods known in the art. The individual slabs are continuously transported to a raised station 21 where the corrugations 18 are projected onto the pre-printed slab. Thereafter, the slab is supplied to a cigarette packaging machine 22 where the cigarettes 23 are supplied. The cigarette wrapping machine 22 folds the blank to form the package 1 and fills and covers the silver foil (not shown) with the cigarettes provided on the internal structure 15.

To form the package, the packaging machine 22 operates in a manner known in the art to fold the blank along the shaded fold line shown in Figure 8 to make the package. The blank 1' includes a front flat plate portion 2' and a rear flat plate portion 3' which are connected by a base flat plate portion 6'. The lid is formed by a lid flat portion 7' having a lid top 24, a lid rear panel 25, a lid front panel 26 and a reentry flap 28-30 which can be folded inwardly to make a first to The lid structure shown in Figure 3.

The side walls 4, 5 of the package are formed by flat portions 4', 4'', 5', 5'' which rely on the front and rear flat portions 2', 3', respectively. When the package is folded, the flat portions 4', 4'' and 5', 5'' overlap and adhere to each other to form the side panels 4, 5.

The beveled edge 8 is produced by the region 8' by folding along the shadow fold lines 31, 32. When combined, the cover 7 can be rotated along the hinge line 11.

First, the blank can be pre-printed with the trademark and user information, but does not have the corrugations 18, 18a. It is then laid on the surface of the raised station, which can use a raised tool as described in Figure 11. Here, the pre-printed blank 1' is placed in alignment with one of the projection tools 34 shown in the cross section, which is moved in the direction of the arrow A to bulge the surface of the blank. The tool 34 includes a series of concave corrugations 35 which are mirror images of the final convex surface of the corrugations 18 formed in the slab, which, when driven downwardly on the slab, bulges the corrugations to the slab In order to achieve the crepe as shown in Fig. 8.

Thereafter, the raised blank 1' is provided to the cigarette wrapping machine 22 shown in Fig. 10 for combination and filling as previously described.

Many modifications and variations of the described package are possible in the light of the present invention. Although the same number of corrugations 18 are shown in the front and rear panels 2, 3 of the package, different numbers may be used, for example, fewer corrugations may be provided on the rear panel 3 relative to the front panel. Similarly, not all of the front panels need to have the corrugations 18, and the portion of the flat surface in a planar configuration may be free of creases.

Moreover, although the package described has a beveled edge 8, it can also be omitted, so the package can have a right or left edge. When provided with curved edges, the corrugations 18 have the advantage of allowing the use of a relatively sheet material, and although the front and rear panels of the package are rigid, they can be immediately deformed into a curved edge.

The corrugations 18 do not need to have the same width as described above and may have different widths. Moreover, the corrugations need not be straight lines but may have curved edges. The corrugation does not need to extend the full width of the front and rear panels 2, 3.

Similarly, the raised tool of the raised station 21 can be a rotating raised device, and other ways of creating the strip or corrugation are also apparent to those skilled in the art, which do not necessarily need to be associated with the protrusion.

Likewise, the slab can be preformed to have the streaks 18 at the time of manufacture, so that the slab retained in the cassette 20 already has the streaks, which avoids the need for the bulge station 21.

Although the invention has been described in relation to a top flip package, it can be coupled to the package of other smoking articles without necessarily having a lid, for example, a container having a plurality of top flipped cigarette packages.

Many other modifications and variations will be apparently found in the scope of the appended claims.

1. . . package

2. . . Front panel

1'. . . Embryo

2'. . . Front panel

3. . . Rear plate

3’. . . Rear plate section

4. . . Side panel

4’, 4’’. . . Flat part

5. . . Side panel

5’, 5’’. . . Flat part

6. . . Bottom plate

6’. . . Basic tablet section

7. . . Pivot cover

7’. . . Cover plate part

8. . . Beveled edge

8'. . . region

9. . . Tilted side

10. . . Front edge

11. . . Hub line

12. . . Upper edge

13. . . Upper edge

14. . . cigarette

15. . . Internal structure

16. . . Re-enter part

17. . . Flange

18. . . Horizontal stripe

18A. . . ripple

19. . . Inter-strip area

20. . . Loading box

twenty one. . . Raised station

twenty two. . . Cigarette packaging machine

twenty three. . . cigarette

twenty four. . . Top of the lid

25. . . Cover rear panel

26. . . Front panel of the cover

28-30. . . Re-enter the flap

31. . . Folding line

32. . . Folding line

34. . . Raised tool

35. . . Concave ripple

In order to obtain a more complete understanding of the present invention, an embodiment will be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 is a schematic perspective view of a cigarette package, indicated from the front side and the side when the lid is closed;

Figure 2 depicts the packaging of the first figure when the cover is opened;

Figure 3 is a schematic exploded view of the package shown in the first and second figures;

Figure 4 is a front view of the package;

Figure 5 is a rear view of the package;

Figure 6 is a side view of the package;

Figure 7 is a top view of the package;

Figure 8 is a schematic depiction of a blank for making the packages shown in Figures 1 through 7;

Figure 9 is a partial cross-sectional view taken along line A-A' of Figure 8;

Figure 10 is a schematic illustration of a device for packaging cigarettes into the packages shown in Figures 1 through 7.

Figure 11 is a schematic illustration of one of the raised stations used in the apparatus shown in Figure 10.

1. . . package

2. . . Front panel

5. . . Side panel

7. . . Pivot cover

8. . . Beveled edge

14. . . cigarette

15. . . Internal structure

16. . . Re-enter part

17. . . Flange

18. . . Horizontal stripe

Claims (15)

A package for smoking articles, comprising a front panel and a rear panel connected by an opposite side panel, a bottom panel and a top panel, wherein the package is made of a sheet of cardboard stacking material ( At least one of the plates includes a plurality of transverse bands including a plurality of corrugations by compressing the sheet of paperboard stacking material in the thickness of the sheet of paperboard stacking material Formed and located on the outer surface of the plates; and the thickness of the lateral stripes is greater than the thickness of the region between the transverse stripes. The package of claim 1 wherein the top panel comprises a lid. A package according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the front and rear panels comprise the transverse stripes. A package according to claim 1 or 2, comprising at least one of the corrugations on the cover. A package according to item 4 of the patent application, wherein the corrugations generally have parallel sides. A package according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the corrugations extend between the side panels. A package according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the sheet of paperboard stacking material comprises cardboard. According to the package of the first or second patent application, including smoking article. A package according to item 8 of the patent application, wherein the smoking article comprises a cigarette. A package according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the top panel comprises a lid that flips the top. A package according to claim 1 or 2, comprising an inner structure of a sheet of cardboard stacking material installed in an upper portion of an opening of the container and restricting the front plate and the side The inside of the flat panel. A package according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the corner edges are bevelled, curved or rectangular. A blank for making a package for smoking articles, comprising a front panel portion, a rear panel portion, a bottom panel portion and a side panel portion, and a portion forming a cover, wherein the panel is formed by a sheet a paperboard stacking material; at least one of the flat panel portions comprising a plurality of transverse stripes comprising corrugations that have been formed by compressing the thickness of the sheetboard stacking material, and the corrugations are disposed in the package at the time of manufacture The outer surface; and the thickness of the transverse stripes is greater than the thickness of the region between the transverse stripes. A method for making a package for a smoking article using a blank of a cardboard stacking material, the blank comprising a front flat portion, a rear flat portion, a bottom flat portion and a side flat portion, and a portion forming a cover, wherein The slab is made up of a thin cardboard pile a laminate material, the method comprising forming a plurality of transverse stripes in at least one of the flat panel portions, the corrugations comprising a corrugation formed in a thickness of the webboard stacking material, the corrugations being compressed by the foil sheet The material is stacked to form the corrugations on an outer surface of the package when the slab is fabricated, the thickness of the lateral stripes being greater than the thickness of the region between the transverse stripes. The method of claim 14, comprising: conveying a plurality of slabs from a blank tray to an embossing station to form the stripes, and conveying the compressed slabs to a cigarette The machine is packaged to form a package filled with cigarettes.