Preopened bags for automated baggers and related methods
AssigneeAdvanced Poly-Packaging, Inc.
InventorTony D. Baker
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A web of bags for use in an automatic bagging machine is formed from a single layer of plastic film or a flattened tubular plastic film. When formed from the tubular material, the bags are doubled walled. The bags have lateral slits therein to accomodate opening of the bags in an automatic bagger. The bags are further configured to be received upon a track having an expandable portion that laterally displaces the bags in the web, causing them to open beneath a filling head for receipt of articles. A latter portion of the track allows the bags to resume their normally closed posture, where they are sealed and separated from each other.
Claims18
An assemblage of bags for use in an automatic bagging machine, comprising:
- a continuous web of a pair of laterally opposed rows of bags;
- lateral cuts extending partially across said web, said lateral cuts separating said bags from adjacent bags in each of said rows, and defining sides of said bags;
- and
- longitudinal cuts, orthogonal to said lateral cuts, transversing each of said sides of said bags, said longitudinal cuts facilitating opening of said bags.
A method for making a web of interconnected preopened double walled bags, comprising:
- flattening a tubular film into a continuous double walled sheet;
- folding sides of said sheet inwardly upon themselves;
- imparting lateral seals into said sheet at spaced apart locations, said seals defining bags therebetween;
- imparting lateral cuts through said sheet between said bags within said seals to separate said bags from each other;
- and
- imparting longitudinal cuts though said sheet at an end of said lateral cuts.
The method of bagging articles in a continuous web of dual rows of interconnected preopened bags, comprising:
- feeding the continuous web upon a track that separates the rows and opens the bags within the rows;
- filling the bags with articles;
- moving the web upon the track to a point that brings the rows of bags together and thereby closes the bags;
- sealing the bags at the areas where the articles were deposited therein;
- separating the bags from each other;
- and
- retrieving the remainder of the continuous web as waste.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.