Total containment welding of plastic tubes
AssigneeDenco, Inc.
InventorsDudley W. C. Spencer, John B. Shaposka
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Plastic tubes are welded together by placing each tube in a nest which includes a pair of grooves and an anvil centrally located between the grooves. Each tube is positioned in the grooves around the anvil for being juxtaposed the other tube. A wafer of movably mounted to move to the gap between the anvils so as to heat the ends of the tubes and melt the tubes without actually cutting through the tubes. The melted ends are then joined together so that the two tubes are thereby connected with one section of each tube being in flow communication with a corresponding section of the other tube.
Claims45
A nest for use in the welding of plastic tubes comprising a block having an upper surface, a pair of side by side parallel longitudinal tube receiving areas on said upper surface, an upstanding partition on said upper surface separating said tube receiving areas from each other, said partition terminating at its forward end in an anvil, and said anvil extending to at least the edge of said upper surface whereby a tube may be bent around said anvil with sections of the tube in said tube receiving areas and with the bent portion of the tube extending beyond said upper surface whereby the bent portion of the tube may be contacted by a heated wafer movable beyond said upper surface to permit the tube to be welded to another tube.
A method of welding sections from two plastic tubes comprising the steps of bending one of the tubes around an anvil of a nest having two side by side tube receiving areas, locating the sections of the tube adjacent the bent portion in the tube receiving areas, repeating the bending and locating steps with the other of the tubes around a second anvil of a second nest, clamping the tubes in the nests, mounting the nests on a support surface with the bent portions of the tubes disposed toward each other, passing a heater wafer through the area where the bent portions of the tubes are disposed toward each other to contact and melt the bent portions, and welding a tube section from each tube with a corresponding tube section of the other tube.
A method of forming a weld seal from two distal tube ends which are closed including the steps of mounting the closed tube ends in co-axial mounting blocks, clamping and flattening the tube ends, moving a heater between the tube ends, contacting the heater and both tube ends while the heater is moving to weld the tube ends to each other in a melt-wipe operation in which after the tube ends are melted the tube ends are pressed together to form a single tube, and re-opening the joined tube ends of the single tube.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.