US3060985A

US3060985A - Bag closure

Info

Publication number: US3060985A
Application number: US47821A
Authority: US
Inventors: John R Vance; William R Donnelly
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1960-08-05
Filing date: 1960-08-05
Publication date: 1962-10-30
Anticipated expiration: 1979-10-30

Description

Oct. 30, 1962 J. R. vANcE ETAL BAG CLOSURE Filed Aug. 5, 19e@ IN VEN TORS Jazz R. Yzwe BYW/llim R Donne EY l@ www ATTORNEYS United States Patent O Ollio Filed Aug. 5, 1960, Ser. No. 47,821 8 Claims. {CL 150-3) This invention relates to bag closures, and particularly to closures for closing and sealing a tubular flexible bag without the use of heat or adhesives, the closure being removable and/ or reuseable.

In brief, the closure of the present invention comprises a generally channel-shaped element extending transversely across a tubular bag and wherein the side ilanges of the channel member are turned inwardly to define hookshaped side walls. The bag to be sealed is laid across the open face of the channel and a strip of resilient flexible material is -bowed laterally and its opposed edges are positioned in the channel to engage the bag therein and press the walls of the bag against the inside of the hookshaped side walls. The resilience of the strip material is suflicient to exert considerable pressure against the bag and to effectively seal it in the channel-shaped closure. The invention contemplates that the resilient strip may be bowed either inwardly or outwardly of the channel. When bowed outwardly pressure within the bag may be caused to release the closure or the closure may be released by tension applied to the bag on opposite sides of the channel member. When the strip is bowed inwardly the closure is locked and cannot be released either by pressure within the bag or by tension applied to the bag. In either of the above forms, however, the closure may be readily released by sliding the bag and strip endwise out of the channel member to render the contents of the bag accessible and the closure may be again reapplied to seal the remaining contents within the bag.

It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a bag closure that may be easily applied to or removed from a flexible tubular bag without heat or adhesives and which may be reused at will after the bag has once -been opened.

Another object of the invention is to provide an efr'ective sealing closure for a flexible tubular bag, which closure may be released or removed without having direct access thereto.

Still another object of the invention is to provide a releasable closure for a flexible bag, effective for providing a perfect seal and yet releasable by the application of pressure to the bag.

A further object is to provide a bag closure which may be locked against release in response to internal pressure and which is yet readily removable and reusea-ble.

A still further object of the invention is to pro-vide a bag closure accomplishing the objectives set forth above but which is simple in construction, economical to manufacture, and yet reliable and efficient in operation.

Additional objects and advantages will become apparent to those skilled in the art as the description proceeds with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:

FIG. l is a side elevational View of a exible tubular bag closed and sealed by a closure embodying the present invention;

substantial amount of air present.

e ICC FIG. 6 is a fragmentary sectional view, similar to FIG. 2, but showing a further modified form of the invention.

FIG. l shows a flexible tubular bag 2 which may b'e of thin plastic or other suitable material, having a transverse permanent seal 4 across the bottom thereof.

While the bags illustrated herein are truly tubular bags, that is, having no side seams, it is to be understood that the invention is applicable to bags formed of dat sheet material and which may be provided with one or vmore side seams. It is contemplated, however, that the bags be of plastic material and that the bottom seal such as at 4 Ibe heat-sealed.

The closure shown in FIGS. l and 2 comprises a rigid channel member 6 which may be extruded or otherwise formed from plastic material or metal, it being only necessary that the channel member be substantially rigid or at least sufficiently rigid so as not to be deformed when employed in the manner to be described. The channel member 6 comprises a base portion S and side flanges 10. The side anges 10 converge outwardly of the channel, as clearly shown in FIG. 2, and might well be described as deiining hook-shaped side walls. The anges 10 and the base portion 8 dene therebetween an undercut channel space. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2,

H the flexible bag 2. is flattened at its open end, after being filled with the desired product, and arranged to extend across the open side of the channel mem-ber 6 and being pressed, folded, or otherwise positioned to lie against the inner face ot the aforementioned channel space.

An elongated strip 12 of relatively thin resiliently ilexible material is formed to have a width greater than the maximum width of the channel 4space previously referred to. The strip 12 is of a material, which may be plastic or otherwise, normally assuming a at sheet form but which may be bowed transversely as shown in FIG. 2 without taking a permanent set and which then tends to straighten out or reassume its flat condition. When the strip l2 is positioned as shown in FIG. 2 and released to its own resilience, it tries to assume a flat condition and thus its opposed longitudinal edges 14 are irrnly pressed against the walls of the bag 2 and clamp and seal the same in the undercut portions of the channel member 6. The seal has been found to be extremely effective and complete.

The channel member 6 and strip 12 are preferably of the same length and slightly greater in length than the width of the bag 2. FGS. l and 3 show the channel member and flexible strip as of different lengths, such showing being made to facilitate illustration without confusion.

An eminently suitable material for the strip l2 cornprises a strip of polyethylene terephthalate. Such a resin is obtainable under the trade name of Mylan However, itis to be understood that the invention is not limited to the use of that specific material but may be practiced by employing a strip of other suitable materials having similar physical characteristics.

As shown in FlG. 2, the base portion 8 of channel members `6 is at and the strip 12 is bowed outwardly of the channel space. With this arrangement the user may grasp the free end 16 of the bag 2 and also grasp the main body portion of the bag and apply tension tending to separate those portions. The tension thus applied causes the portion of the bag within the channel member 6 to straighten out, thus further bowing strip i12 and causing the same to pop out of the channel member and thereby removing the closure. It is also to be pointed out that the bag 2 when filled with a desired product may be opened without applying tension as described above. vWhether the product be liquid or a mass of solid particles, the interior of the sealed bag may be said to contain a fluid medium. If filled with a mass of solid particles there is always a By applying pressure 3 on the face of a filled sealed bagas shown in FIG. l, the fluid pressure therein causes the bag to tend to straighten out in the closure and if suicient pressure is applied the strip 12 will pop out of the channel 6 and thus release and remove the closure even though the same is not directlyremoved by the user.

, FIG. illustrates a use for such a bag closure as just described. In FIG. 5 an outer bag 1S is permanently sealed by transverse seams 20 and encloses a second flexible tubular bag 22 therein. The bag 22 may be joined to the bottom seal 20 to be held in the illustrated position. The inner bag 22 may be filled with water or other suitable chemical and sealed by a closure 24 shown in dotted4 lines and which may be identical to that described with reference to FIGS. 1 and 2. The remaining space within the outer bag 18 may contain a suitable solid chemical material 26 which'will react with the water or other chemical in bag 22 to produce either high or low temperatures. For example, bag 22 may contain water and the material 26 may be any of many well-known solid chemicals which combine with water to produce extremely low temperatures and the assembly is thus useful for cooling food or other materials. The assembly shown in FIG. 5 may be handled quite roughly Without releasing the closure 24. However, when it is desirable to activate the materials it is only necessary to place the assembly on any firm surface and apply pressure with the palm of the hand over the bag 22. The pressure thus applied causes the closure 24 to release itself in the manner previously described and the water is thus mixed with the material 26 to react therewith while the mixture is still contained in the sealed bag 18.

Now referring to FIGS. 3 and 4, the exible bag 2 may be identical to the bag shown in FIG. l. The closure in this instance, however, comprises a channel member 6' having hook-shaped side flanges 28` and a base portion 30. The base portion 30' is not flat, as in the form of FIG. 2, but is itself bowed outwardly or rearwardly of the channel space, thus presenting a concave surface inside the channel. IThe strip |12 of flexible resilient material may be identical to the strip described in connection with FIG. 2 but, as shown, when employed with the channel member 6', it is bowed inwardly of the channel space rather than outwardly as shown in FIG. 2. In this form of the invention neither internal pressure in bag 2 nor tension applied to the bag on opposite sides of the closure will cause the same to open. Any tension applied to the bag or any build-up of internal pressure does tend to bow the strip 12 to a greater degree, as it did in the FIG. 2 embodiment, but the amount of bowing permitted is limited by the base portion 30 of channel member 6 and is limited to such a degree that the strip l2 cannot release its edges 14 from the hook-shaped side walls 28 and thus the closure cannot be released in that manner. The closure can be released, however, by simply sliding the bag 2 and strip 12 longitudinally of the channel member 6' and out of either end thereof.

In the embodiment of FIG. 6 the bag 2 and strip 12 are identical to those shown in FIG. 2 but the channel member 32 is somewhat different. In general shape and outline, the channel member 32 is identical to that shown in FIG. 2 but the base portion 34 thereof is provided with one or more openings 36 through each of which an actuator shank 38 extends. The shank or shanks 38 are provided with heads or secured to an elongated actuator bar 4t? at their outer ends and are joined to an elongated strip 42 inside the channel and extending lengthwise therein. The bar 42 is transversely crowned as shown in FIG. 6 with its outer surface spaced slightly inwardly of the bowed strip 12. In this form the closure may be removed by applying inward pressure to the heads or bar 49, thus moving the bar 42 outwardly of the channel where it engages bowed strip 12 and forces the same outwardly of the channel, thus releasing the bag 2.

The combination or assembly shown in FIG. 5 may be simplified by employing a single tubular bag having a closure of the type shownV in FIGS. 3 and 4 at its open end and a transverse closure, of the type shown in FIGS. l and 2, intermediate the top and bottom of the bag. Such an arrangement would thus define a bag having two compartments separated and sealed from each other by the closure of FIG. 2. One of the compartments may contain the solid chemical material 26, whereas the other compartment may be provided with water or the like. With such an arrangement pressure applied to either compartment would cause the intermediate closure to release and thus permit the chemicals to mix. Such pressure, however, would not cause the end closure (of the form shown in FIG. 4) to release and so the mixed chemicals would still remain sealed in the bag.

It will be obvious to those skilled in the art that the closure of the present invention may be used for many purposes to contain either a single material within a bag, to render the material accessible and the bag resealable, and/ or to contain separated proportioned quantities of chemical materials that may be intermixed while still contained within an outer sealed bag or the like.

While a limited number of specific embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, it is to be understood lthat other forms may be resorted to Within the scope of the appended claims.

We claim:

l. `In combination, a flexible tubular bag having an open end, a closure assembly extending transversely across said bag adjacent but spaced from said open end, said closure assembly comprising an elongated rigid channel member having a base portion and longitudinal side flanges, said side flanges converging outwardly of said channel member and inwardly over the base toward each other to define therebetween an undercut channel space, said bag extending across said channel member and lying against the inner face of said channel space, and a thin unitary strip of resiliently flexible material arranged with its opposed longitudinal edges bearing on said bag at the bases of said side flanges, said strip being bowed transversely to resiliently press said longitudinal edges against said bag and seal said bag against the inner face of said channel space.

2. The combination of claim l wherein said strip is bowed outwardly of said channel space.

3. The combination of claim 2 wherein said base portion of said channel member is substantially flat.

4. The combination of claim 1 wherein said strip is bowed inwardly of said channel space.

5. The combination of claim 4 wherein said base portion of said channel member is bowed rearwardly in said channel space.

6. A bag closure assembly comprising, an elongated rigid channel member having a base portion and generally hook-shaped flanges inwardly turned over the base portion extending along its longitudinal edges for the full length thereof and defining therebetween an undercut channel space, and an elongated thin unitary strip of normally flat but resiliently flexible material substantially the same length as said channel member, the width of said strip being greater than the width of said channel space whereby said strip may be transversely bowed and positioned in said channel then released to References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS Lundqvist Aug. 27, 1918 Bunnell Feb. 21, 1933