Elongated plastic material

Abstract

A dunnage shock absorber and a method and apparatus for making the same is disclosed. The shock absorber is constructed from plastic material which forms a series of trigonal-shaped, gas-filled units which maintain adequate shock absorbing characteristics over a broad range of temperature conditions. This disclosed method includes the steps of forming a plastic tubular body, introducing a cooled gas into the body and forming individual trigonal-shaped united having cooled gas entrapped through angularly heating sealing the edges of such units. The disclosed apparatus forms plastic film into a series of gas-filled trigonal units through the use of fin seal rollers to seal the film into a tubular body. Sponge-like rollers downline of the fin seal rollers grip the tubular body and a conduit injects cooled gas into the tubular body. Horizontal and vertical sealers are provided downline of the sponge-like rollers to heat seal the tubular body with gas entrapped therein.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.