Vertical form, fill and seal machine for handling large pouches
AssigneeGlopak Inc.
InventorsRoland Basque, Geoff J. Knowers
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A vertical pouch forming, filling and sealing machine and method for making pouches and filling same with a liquid content in the range of about 5 to 20 liters, is described. As a pouch is being filled with a liquid it descends into a support cage to restrain the pouch from ballooning out and prevents the weight of the liquid in the filled pouch from tensioning the film in the hot horizontal seal zone of the horizontal sealer. The support cage compensates for loss of surface tension of the film in the hot horizontal seal zone during the horizontal sealing cycle. The cage also has a gate section to discharge the filled pouch by gravity after the horizontal sealing cycle.
Claims33
A vertical pouch forming, filling and sealing machine for making pouches with a liquid content in the range of about 5 to 20 liters, said machine comprising support means for supporting one or more supply rolls of film material, a guide means to support and guide a film sheet from one of said supply rolls along a feed path, a film feed drive for displacing said film sheet along said feed path and through a pouch former where a section of said film sheet is folded and disposed about a drop tube having a liquid fill tube therein, vertical sealing means to form a vertical seal along said folded film sheet, horizontal sealing means to form a bottom seal for a pouch to be filled and a top seal for a filled pouch, severing means to detach said filled pouch from said pouch to be filled, pouch support means to support a bottom end of said pouch during the operation cycle of said horizontal sealing means to prevent the weight of said liquid in said filled pouch from tensioning said film in a hot horizontal seal zone of said horizontal sealing means to compensate for loss of surface tension of said film in said hot horizontal seal zone during a hot horizontal sealing cycle, said support means also restrains said pouch being filled to prevent it from being unstable by ballooning out during the filling cycle, said support means having a discharge gate section to discharge said filled pouch after said horizontal sealing cycle, said discharge gate section being a roller wall discharge gate to gravity discharge said filled pouch to a discharge conveyor.
A method of vertically forming a pouch from a continuous film sheet, filling said pouch with a liquid content in the range of about 5 to 20 liters and sealing said filled pouch, said method comprising the steps of:
- i) drawing said film sheet from a supply roll and about guide means along a feed path and through a pouch former, said pouch former being secured at a top end of a drop tube,
- ii) folding a section of said film sheet about said bag pouch former to form a folded film tube,
- iii) drawing said folded film tube, in predetermined length cycles, about said drop tube, said drop tube having a liquid fill tube therein,
- iv) forming a vertical seal along an overlapped film portion of said film tube and over said drop tube,
- v) forming a horizontal seal by horizontal sealing means to form a bottom horizontal seal for a pouch to be filled with said liquid and simultaneously forming a top horizontal seal to form a filled pouch,
- vi) severing said filled pouch from said pouch to be filled,
- vii) filling said pouch to be filled with a liquid from said fill tube;
- viii) discharging said filled pouch, and during step (vii) effecting the step of drawing in a support means said pouch being filled for constraining said pouch to be filled in a cage, as it is filled with a liquid through said fill tube and throughout a filling cycle to prevent said pouch from ballooning outwardly by the force of said liquid and for supporting said pouch during the operation cycle of step (v) to prevent the weight of said liquid in said filled pouch from tensioning said film in a hot horizontal seal zone of said horizontal sealing means, said support means compensating for loss of surface tension of said film in said hot horizontal seal zone during a hot horizontal sealing cycle, said cage having a pivotal discharge gate, said gate being pivoted to cause said filled pouch to fall on said discharge gate and being guidingly discharged from said cage to a discharge conveyor means.
A vertical pouch forming, filling and sealing machine for making pouches with a liquid content in the range of about 5 to 20 liters, said machine comprising support means for supporting one or more supply rolls of film material, a guide means to support and guide a film sheet from one of said supply rolls along a feed path, a film feed drive for displacing said film sheet along said feed path and through a pouch former where a section of said film sheet is folded and disposed about a drop tube having a liquid fill tube therein, vertical sealing means to form a vertical seal along said folded film sheet, horizontal sealing means to form a bottom seal for a pouch to be filled and a top seal for a filled pouch, severing means to detach said filled pouch from said pouch to be filled, pouch support means to support a bottom end of said pouch during the operation cycle of said horizontal sealing means to prevent the weight of said liquid in said filled pouch from tensioning said film in a hot horizontal seal zone of said horizontal sealing means to compensate for loss of surface tension of said film in said hot horizontal seal zone during a hot horizontal sealing cycle, said support means also restrains said pouch being filled to prevent it from being unstable by ballooning out during the filling cycle, said support means having a discharge gate section to discharge said filled pouch after said horizontal sealing cycle, said pouch former having a wrap-around collar secured at a top end of said drop tube to cause said film sheet to encircle said drop tube and overlap at opposed vertical side edges thereof to receive a vertical seal by a vertical seal bar actuable against a top portion of said drop tube and constituting said vertical sealing means, said drop tube having an oval transverse cross-section, and spreader finger secured to a lower end of said drop tube below said vertical sealing bar to stretch a film tube formed by said pouch former and vertical seal bar.
A vertical pouch forming, filling and sealing machine for making pouches with a liquid content in the range of about 5 to 20 liters, said machine comprising support means for supporting one or more supply rolls of film material, a guide means to support and guide a film sheet from one of said supply rolls along a feed path, a film feed drive for displacing said film sheet along said feed path and through a pouch former where a section of said film sheet is folded and disposed about a drop tube having a liquid fill tube therein, vertical sealing means to form a vertical seal along said folded film sheet, horizontal sealing means to form a bottom seal for a pouch to be filled and a top seal for a filled pouch, severing means to detach said filled pouch from said pouch to be filled, said severing means being a pulsed hot wire forming part of said horizontal sealing means, said horizontal sealing means being constituted by electrically pulsed clamping sealing bars, pouch support means to support a bottom end of said pouch during the operation cycle of said horizontal sealing means to prevent the weight of said liquid in said filled pouch from tensioning said film in a hot horizontal seal zone of said horizontal sealing means to compensate for loss of surface tension of said film in said hot horizontal seal zone during a hot horizontal sealing cycle, said support means also restrains said pouch being filled to prevent it from being unstable by ballooning out during the filling cycle, said support means having a discharge gate section to discharge said filled pouch after said horizontal sealing cycle.
A method of vertically forming a pouch from a continuous film sheet, filling said pouch with a liquid content in the range of about 5 to 20 liters and sealing said filled pouch, said method comprising the steps of:
- i) drawing said film sheet from a supply roll and about guide means along a feed path and through a pouch former, said pouch former being secured at a top end of a drop tube,
- ii) folding a section of said film sheet about said pouch former to form a folded film tube,
- iii) drawing said folded film tube, in predetermined length cycles, about said drop tube, said drop tube having a liquid fill tube therein,
- iv) forming a vertical seal along an overlapped film portion of said film tube and over said drop tube,
- v) forming a horizontal seal by horizontal sealing means to form a bottom horizontal seal for a pouch to be filled with said liquid and simultaneously forming a top horizontal seal to form a filled pouch,
- vi) severing said filled pouch from said pouch to be filled,
- vii) filling said pouch to be filled by two spaced-apart filler tubes positioned side-by-side to discharge said liquid substantially uniformly in said pouch to be filled to maintain said pouch stretched out;
- viii) discharging said filled pouch, and during step (vii) effecting the step of drawing in a support means said pouch being filled for constraining said pouch to be filled in a cage, as it is filled with a liquid through said fill tube and throughout a filling cycle to prevent said pouch from ballooning outwardly by the force of said liquid and for supporting said pouch during the operation cycle of step (v) to prevent the weight of said liquid in said filled pouch from tensioning said film in a hot horizontal seal zone of said horizontal sealing means, said support means compensating for loss of surface tension of said film in said hot horizontal seal zone during a hot horizontal sealing cycle.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.