Thermoforming Bottle Shaping Jaws for Hermetic Weld Alignment
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing technique for shaping and packaging food containers by thermoforming plastic sheets faces issues with unsightly weld extra thickness, non-homogeneous bottle shapes, and lack of hermeticity due to imperfect edge alignment and weld robustness, leading to aesthetic and structural problems.
Innovation Solution
A shaper with jaws defining a cylindrical inner contour and a slot allows precise alignment and welding of plastic sheet edges, ensuring a clean, hermetic, and robust weld without extra thickness, using a pre-shaper to facilitate sheet conformation into a cylinder before thermoforming.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the free edges of the plastic sheet are welded to form a cylinder, then the bottle can be formed and sealed, but an extra thickness is created at the weld bead making it unsightly and causing non-homogeneous bottle shape
Solution Approach 1:
The edges of the plastic sheet are pre-flattened and pre-aligned using flattening rollers and alignment guides before the welding process. This preliminary action ensures that the edges are perfectly flat and aligned, preventing extra thickness formation during welding and ensuring homogeneous bottle shape while maintaining weld hermeticity
2Ease of manufacture
If the free edges of the sheet are welded without perfect alignment, then the process is simpler, but the weld is not hermetic and lacks robustness
Solution Approach 1:
The alignment guides and stop means are designed to automatically align the free edges of the plastic sheet during the feeding process. The sheet self-aligns against the guides and stops, ensuring perfect edge alignment without requiring complex manual adjustment or additional alignment operations, thus maintaining ease of manufacture while ensuring weld hermeticity and robustness
3Manufacturing precision
If heating and cooling guides are used to flatten and freeze edges before welding, then weld quality improves, but the implementation becomes difficult and costly
Solution Approach 1:
The complex heating and cooling system is replaced by extracting only the essential mechanical flattening and alignment functions. Simple flattening rollers and alignment guides are used instead of thermal processing equipment, achieving the same weld quality improvement while dramatically reducing device complexity and implementation cost
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The solution results in the production of robust, hermetic, and aesthetically pleasing bottles with minimal weld extra thickness, improving the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of the shaping process.
Implementation Method 1
welding means extending through said slot, said welding means being ultrasonic welding means
Implementation Method 2
ultrasonic vibrations that generate friction heat and fuse the material
Implementation Method 3
molding means for hot blow molding a bottle within said sheet
Implementation Method 4
hot blow molding to take the shape of a bottle
Data Source
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Figure 4a~4b
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AI summary
The invention relates to equipment for shaping bottles by thermoforming a sheet of a plastic material (14), said equipment including a blowing and/or filling pipe, a welding means, and a means for moulding said bottles. According to the invention, the equipment includes a means for the cylindrical shaping of said sheet, said shaping means being arranged upstream from said moulding means and including first (11) and second (12) jaws provided about said pipe and having inner outlines (111, 121, 122) defining a cylinder, the second jaw including a channel (123) extending longitudinally on at least a portion of the length thereof, and opposite which extends said welding means, wherein a stopping means (124) defining an abutment for at least one of the free edges of said sheet extends essentially along the axis of said channel.