WO1997037905A1

WO1997037905A1 - Inflatable packaging

Info

Publication number: WO1997037905A1
Application number: PCT/IB1997/000332
Authority: WO
Inventors: Eric Risgalla; Xavier De Saint-Sauveur
Original assignee: Carapak Braintrust N.V.
Priority date: 1996-04-04
Filing date: 1997-04-02
Publication date: 1997-10-16
Also published as: EP0894072B1; DE69701311T2; ES2143852T3; DE69701311D1; JP2000508274A; FR2747108A1; EP0894072A1; FR2747108B1; AU2039697A

Abstract

An inflatable packaging including a valve (15) between two flexible sheets extending at least partially inside the walls and communicating the inside of the packaging with the outside thereof via an opening (9). One end (12a) of a tab cut out of one wall of the packaging is located in a window (22a) in a seal (22) joining said wall to the two flexible sheets forming the valve (15). The walls of the valve (15) may be torn and the packaging deflated by grasping said end (12a) of the tab and pulling it leftwards.

Description

INFLATABLE PACKAGING

The present invention relates to an inflatable packaging comprising a valve formed by a channel formed between two flexible sheets extending at least partially inside said walls and having a first opening communicating with the outside of the packaging and a second opening communicating with the interior of the packaging, these flexible sheets being intended to be pressed against one another as soon as one ceases to apply a force to them to spread them apart, thus preventing the inflation gas from leaving of the packaging.

We know of such a packaging described in WO95 / 23742 and in particular a system has been proposed making it possible to deflate the packaging easily by tearing off a tab attached to an opening formed through one of the walls of this packaging. For this purpose, the attached tab is welded around the opening passing through the wall, so that by pulling this tab, the wall is torn and the packaging deflates.

In terms of manufacturing, the addition of the tongue constitutes the addition of an additional element. The main drawback is however linked to the opening of the packaging. Indeed, the tongue being welded to the wall of the packaging, the tearing of the tongue must cause the tearing of this wall. However, this wall must have as good resistance as possible to avoid being damaged during handling and transport. Such packaging is precisely intended to protect fragile goods during their transport, so that the tearing of the wall using the tab may require too much effort to be obtained manually. It is also possible that it is the tongue that tears around the seal, and not the wall of the bag, ultimately requiring the use of a sharp or perforating tool to deflate the packaging and to remove the goods from the pocket, what we specifically want to avoid. The object of the present invention is to at least partially remedy the aforementioned drawbacks.

To this end, the subject of this invention is an inflatable packaging of the aforementioned type, characterized in that said two flexible sheets pass through part of the packaging and that said first opening coincides with an opening passing through a wall of the packaging, the edges of these two openings being welded to each other and in that upstream of this first opening, said two flexible sheets are welded to the body of a tongue cut out from one of the walls of the package, one end of which gripping of this tongue is free vis-à-vis said flexible sheets, this tongue being isolated from the internal space of the packaging by a peripheral weld. The main advantage of this invention lies in the fact that in order to open the inflatable zone of the package, the wall of the package is not torn, but the valve is destroyed. However, if the wall of the package must be precisely strong enough not to be damaged during transport, that of the valve is as flexible as possible and therefore thin to allow a good closure of the channel under the effect of the prevailing pressure in the inflatable area. As a result, it is much easier to tear the wall of the valve than that of the airbag. In addition, by cutting the tear-off tab in the wall of the packaging bag itself, the addition of an additional element is avoided. It can also be mentioned that by making the entry of the valve through an opening formed through the wall of the bag, the channel can be arranged parallel to an edge of the bag, thereby limiting the width of the sheets in which the channel of the valve is formed, without reducing the length of the channel, which must be sufficient to guarantee the sealing of the inflatable part of the package.

The appended drawing illustrates, schematically and by way of example, an embodiment and a variant of the inflatable packaging, object of the invention. Figure 1 is an elevational view illustrating the different stages of the manufacturing process of this embodiment.

Figure 2 is a plan view along line II-II of FIG. 1.

Figure 3 is a plan view along line III-III of Figure 1.

FIG. 4 is a plan view along the line IV-IV of FIG. 1. FIG. 5 is a plan view along the line V-V of FIG. 1.

Figure 6 is a plan view along line VI-VI of Figure 1.

Figure 7 is a sectional view along line VII-VII of Figure 1.

FIG. 8 is an elevation view of a variant of FIG. 1.

FIG. 1 illustrates eight strips 1 to 8 of monolayer or multilayer thermoplastic film such as polystyrene, polypropylene, polyethylene or endless polyamide used for the manufacture of the inflatable packaging, object of the present invention. The wider strips 1, 4, 5 and 6 are intended to form the walls of the packaging bag, the narrower strips 2, 3 are intended to form the valve and the strips 7 and 8 are intended to form a pocket flap to receive shipping information. Preferably, the film thickness of the strips 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 is of the order of 100 μm or even more depending on the desired resistance, while that of the strips 2 and 3 intended to form the valve is approximately 40 μm to make them more flexible and thus facilitate closing the valve.

The various manufacturing operations for this packaging take place online and are illustrated by FIGS. 2 to 6 in which the transverse limits of the sachets are drawn in dashed lines.

First of all, at stage a (FIG. 1), on the strip 1 constituting the front face of the packaging (FIG. 2), an access orifice 9 is opened to the valve. Parallel and in a position intended to coincide with the access orifice 9, an orifice 10 for access to the valve channel is formed on the strip 2 which will be described later. To the right of this orifice 10 and on the face of the strip 3 located opposite the strip 2, a layer of sparing varnish 11 is deposited (fig. 3).

On the front face, constituted by the sheet 1, there is still a precut at stage b (fig. 1) a tongue 12 situated to the left of the access orifice 9 (fig. 2).

In stage c of the process, the two strips 2 and 3 are welded along two parallel lines 13, 14 forming between them a channel 15 from one edge to the other of the packaging, the locations of the transverse edges not yet formed being shown by the transverse lines in dashed lines. There is also a cutout 16 intended to put this channel 15 in communication with the outside, thus completing the formation of the valve.

In parallel, at this same stage c, a weld 17 is formed (FIG. 6) to assemble the strips 4 and 5 intended to constitute the internal walls of the inflatable packaging. This weld 17 in the shape of a U whose opening coincides with one of the longitudinal edges of the strips 4 and 5 and serves as a pocket 19 intended to receive the article to be packaged introduced by the opening of the pocket 19. Between the ends of the branches of the U and on one of the adjacent faces of the strips 4 and 5 a layer of sparing varnish 18 is deposited intended to prevent the subsequent welding of the opening of the pocket 19.

Between the bottom of the pocket 19 and the adjacent longitudinal edge of the strips 4 and 5, these strips are pierced with an opening 20 which is surrounded by a weld 21. This opening is intended to make the two parts communicate with each other. inflatable packaging as will be seen later.

In step d (fig. 1) below, strips 2 and 3 are welded to the back of strip 1 according to weld 22. This weld 22 welds strips 2 and 3 together to the back of strip 1 as illustrated by the Figure 5, welding the edges of the holes 9 and 10 together, while the varnish sparks 11 prevents the welding of the sheets 2 and 3. A space 22a is reserved without welding to the right of the head 12a of the tongue 12, so as to leave this head 12a free to allow it to be grasped when one wants to open the packaging as will be explained later. The rest of the tongue 12 is welded to the strip 2, itself welded to the strip 3, in order to allow the opening of the packaging. In stage e of the process (fig. 1), all of the superimposed strips 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 are welded. The strips 2 and 3 are welded between the strips 1 and 4. The presence sparing varnish 18 deposited between the ends of the branches of the U-shaped weld 19 prevents the edges of the strips 4 and 5 from being welded at this location, thus allowing access to the interior of the pocket 19.

In parallel with this operation, the strips 7 and 8 are welded, the sheet 8 being wider than the sheet 7, along their adjacent longitudinal edges and transversely; the distance between two transverse welds corresponding to the width of the packaging, thus providing a pocket between these two strips 7 and 8. Finally, at stage f, the free longitudinal edge of the strip 8 is welded to the back of the packaging bag obtained in stage e, as illustrated by the section in FIG. 7. The flap with pocket formed by the bands 7 and 8 is used to receive the shipping information. Then, the flap is folded over the face 1 of the bag, against which it can then be glued using an adhesive strip 23, deposited along the outer edge of the strip 7. To inflate the packaging, we introduce a tube such as a straw through the superimposed openings 9, 10 of the strips 1 and 2, to enter the channel 15 forming the valve and pressurized air is introduced through this tube. This air inflates the space formed between the sheets 1 and 4, and enters the space formed between the sheets 5 and 6, passing through the opening 20. If, beforehand, an article has been introduced into the pocket 19, it is completely surrounded by an air protective mattress and is at the same time trapped in the pocket, the flexible wall of which closely follows the contour of the article. The tube is then removed from the channel 15, so that its walls formed by the bands 2 and 3 are applied against each other by the difference in pressure between the inside and outside of the packaging, thus ensuring its tightness.

When the article is to be removed from the bag 19, the protective packaging must be deflated. To this end, the end 12a of the tongue 12 is grasped and pulled so that the part of this tongue 12, welded to the two walls 2, 3 of the valve as explained in relation to FIG. 5, tears off the valve, thus putting the inflatable part of the packaging in communication with the outside. The packaging which has just been described has the function of protecting the article or articles placed in the bag 19 during transport, because it makes it possible to isolate the contents of this bag from any direct contact with the outside.

It is also possible to envisage a simpler variant intended solely for ensuring a packaging of particular appearance without essentially ensuring a protective function.

For this purpose, a single-walled packaging 1 and 6 is produced with two narrower bands 2 and 3 to make the valve in an identical manner to what is described and represented by FIGS. 2 to 5. The bands 4 and 5 are omitted , as well as the flap 7, 8, so that only the outer walls 1 and 6 remain welded together, except on one of their four sides to leave an opening for introducing the article to be packaged and the valve formed between bands 2 and 3.

The rest of the packaging is the same as described above. The only difference comes from the fact that the inflatable part and the pocket for receiving the packaging are one and the same element. Consequently, as mentioned above, one side of the package is left open so that the user can introduce the article to be packaged into the inflatable part, after which he will seal the last side of the package the packaging and it will inflate it, as before. The opening is also obtained as described for the previous embodiment.

Claims

1. Inflatable packaging comprising a valve formed by a channel (15) formed between two flexible sheets (2, 3) extending at least partially inside said walls and having a first opening (10) communicating with the outside packaging and a second opening (16) communicating with the interior of the packaging, these flexible sheets (2, 3Jetant intended to be pressed against each other as soon as one ceases to apply a force to them to separate them, thereby preventing the inflation gas from leaving the packaging, characterized in that said two flexible sheets (2, 3) pass through part of the packaging and that said first opening (9) coincides with an opening ( 10) passing through a wall (1) of the packaging, the edges of these two openings (9, 10) being welded to each other and in that upstream of this first opening, said two flexible sheets ( 2, 3) are welded to the body of a tongue (12) cut from one of the walls (1) of the packaging, one gripping end (12a) of this tab is free vis-à-vis said flexible sheets (2, 3), this tab being isolated from the internal space of the packaging by a peripheral welding.

2. Packaging according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises four flexible walls (1, 4, 5, 6) superimposed assembled on a part of their periphery, then assembled two by two on the remaining periphery, in order to provide a pocket (19) between the two intermediate walls (4, 5), these being further assembled to each other (17) to form at least part of the periphery of the pocket (19), a communication ( 20) being formed between the bottom of the pocket (19) and the bottom of the packaging through said intermediate walls (4, 5).