Packaging apparatus and method
AssigneeTata Consumer Products Gb Limited
InventorsAndrew John Bishop, Neal James Mccabe, Gary Robinson, John Francis Mcgowan, Jason Shawn Lee Exley
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A packaging apparatus includes two counter-rotatable sealing dies for pressing together two tissue webs to produce pockets for containing a substance for preparing beverages and to seal around said pockets. The apparatus includes two heating drums for heating the sealing dies, with each heating drum being positioned inside a respective sealing die, wherein a first heating zone of each heating drum includes a first plurality of circumferentially distributed infrared heating elements, and a second heating zone of each heating drum includes a second plurality of circumferentially distributed infrared heating elements.
Claims14
Packaging apparatus comprising:
- a pair of heated counter-rotatable sealing dies for pressing together two tissue webs to produce pockets for containing a substance for preparing beverages and to seal around said pockets;
- a pair of shafts, each shaft supporting a respective sealing die and extending from a first shaft end portion to a second shaft end portion;
- a pair of bearings, each bearing rotatably supporting one of the shafts at the first shaft end portion thereof;
- a first pressure device configured to act on one of the pair of shafts to provide a first control of the pressure exerted by the sealing dies on the tissue webs;
- a second pressure device configured to act on at least one of the pair of shafts to provide a second control of the pressure exerted by the sealing dies on the tissue webs, wherein the second pressure device is configured to apply a force to urge the shafts towards each other or away from each other;
- and
- a load cell for measuring the force applied by the second pressure device.
A method for packaging a substance for preparing beverages, the method comprising:
- counter-rotating a pair of sealing dies, wherein each sealing die is supported by a respective one of a pair of shafts extending from a first shaft end portion to a second shaft end portion;
- heating, by a respective heating drum, each one of said pair of counter-rotating sealing dies;
- pressing, by the pair of counter-rotating sealing dies, two tissue webs together to produce pockets for containing the substance;
- and
- sealing, by the pair of counter-rotating sealing dies, around the outside of said pockets;
- wherein pressing the tissue webs by the pair of counter-rotating sealing dies comprises:
- controlling a first pressure device to act on one of the pair of shafts to provide a first control of the pressure exerted by the sealing dies on the tissue webs, and
- controlling a second pressure device to act on at least one of the pair of shafts to provide a second control of the pressure exerted by the sealing dies on the tissue webs,
- and wherein controlling the second pressure device to act on at least one of the pair of shafts comprises:
- applying a force to urge the shafts towards each other or away from each other;
- measuring, by a load cell, the force applied by the second pressure device;
- and
- adjusting the force based on the measurements of the load cell.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.