Polyhedral Retail Container With Wraparound Window and Access Tear Path
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Solution Overview
Problem
Retail packaging containers lack features that effectively attract end-purchasers, provide functional advantages for storage and dispensation, and are efficiently manufactured, while maintaining structural integrity and visibility of contents.
Innovation Solution
A convex polyhedral container with translucent or transparent windows and assembly flaps, made from PET material, allowing visibility and structural integrity, and a path of weakness for access, along with visually similar opening profiles for individual packages.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If transparent or translucent windows are added to the container, then product visibility and consumer appeal are improved, but structural integrity and manufacturing complexity worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The container employs a composite structure combining a rigid outer container body with a flexible liner. The liner is configured to engage with the container body and provides structural reinforcement, allowing transparent windows to be integrated while maintaining overall structural integrity. This composite approach enables visibility features without compromising the container's strength.
Solution Approach 2:
A flexible liner is introduced within the container structure. This liner can be made from transparent or translucent materials and is configured to engage with the container body, providing both structural support and visibility. The flexible nature of the liner allows it to conform to the container shape while maintaining integrity, solving the contradiction between transparency and strength.
2Loss of information
If transparent or translucent windows are added to the container, then product visibility and consumer appeal are improved, but manufacturing complexity and cost worsen
Solution Approach 1:
The container is divided into separate components: an outer container body and an inner liner. The liner is a separate element that can be manufactured independently and then engaged with the container body. This segmentation allows the transparent windows to be integrated into the liner manufacturing process rather than requiring complex operations on the entire container assembly, thereby reducing overall manufacturing complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The flexible liner serves as a pre-fabricated component that incorporates the transparent windows during its own manufacturing process. Since the liner is made from flexible materials that can be formed into the required shape with windows, this approach simplifies the overall manufacturing process compared to creating windows in rigid materials, reducing both complexity and cost.
3Ease of operation
If a path of weakness is provided for access, then ease of operation is improved, but structural integrity worsens
Solution Approach 1:
The container incorporates a separable liner that can be removed from the container body through a defined path of weakness. This segmentation allows consumers to easily access the contents by simply removing the liner, which is designed with a separation path that requires minimal force. The path of weakness is localized and does not compromise the overall structural integrity of the container body, as the liner acts as a sacrificial element that can be removed without damaging the main structure.
Data Source
AI summary
A container including an assembled combination of opaque paperboard and substantially transparent polymer sheet is disclosed. The container may have a convex polyhedron shape and include at least a first group of three substantially flat mutually adjacent outer panels, wherein the first group of mutually adjacent outer panels share at least a first substantially transparent window that is present on and extends continuously and wraps from a first of the first group of panels, to a second of the first group of panels, to a third of the first group of panels, the first window being defined by a first window cutout through the paperboard, and the first window being occupied by a continuous section of the polymer sheet present and at least partially forming each of the first group of panels. The container may be a retail package.