Former With Insert For Packaging Material Flow
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Solution Overview
Problem
The existing methods for manufacturing formers for bag manufacturing and packaging machines are time-consuming and inefficient, relying on manual trial and error to achieve the correct shape and dimensions, leading to issues like wrinkles, scratches, and tears in packaging material, which affect quality and increase costs.
Innovation Solution
A former with an insert made of thicker sheet metal, secured flush to the main former, providing additional reinforcement and a smooth surface for packaging material to reduce friction and improve flow, along with a textured surface to decrease friction further, allowing for smoother material transfer and reduced wear.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If manual trial and error method is used to fabricate the former, then the shape and dimensions can be adjusted to achieve acceptable quality, but the manufacturing process becomes time-consuming and not economical
Solution Approach 1:
The former is divided into a main body and a separate insert component. The insert can be independently manufactured with precise dimensions and then attached to the main former body, eliminating the need for time-consuming manual trial and error adjustments of the entire former structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The insert provides a standardized, pre-manufactured component with specific geometric parameters that can be precisely controlled during manufacturing. This allows the former to achieve the required shape and dimension accuracy through the insert's predetermined parameters rather than manual adjustment.
2Reliability
If the former shape and dimensions are not correct within close tolerance, then the packaging material may be wrinkled, scratched, or broken, but achieving close tolerance through manual fabrication is difficult and time-consuming
Solution Approach 1:
By separating the former into a main body and a precision insert, the critical tolerance requirements are concentrated in the insert component which can be manufactured using precise machining processes, while the main body can be fabricated more simply and then assembled with the precision insert.
Solution Approach 2:
The insert provides localized precision surface quality at the critical contact area where packaging material passes over the former. This localized precision manufacturing of the insert surface ensures proper material flow and prevents defects without requiring the entire former to be manufactured with equal precision.
3Ease of operation
If a smooth surface is provided for packaging material to reduce friction, then material flow is improved, but manufacturing precision requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The insert provides a smooth surface finish specifically at the critical contact area where packaging material flows over the former. This localized application of high surface quality reduces friction and improves material flow only where needed, without requiring the entire former structure to meet the same surface finish requirements.
Data Source
AI summary
An improved former provides an insert at the lip of the former to enable packaging material to travel smoothly over the former. The insert lays smoothly on the top surface of the former. The insert is sized approximately one half the width of the packaging material that travels over the insert. The former provides a raised textured surface that enables the packaging material to travel over the former into the aperture. The insert constructed with a smooth top surface is located adjacent at least a portion of the aperture. The insert provides a smooth surface for the packaging material to travel across when entering the aperture.