Multi-compartment Pouch Packaging with Rotor Dosing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing packaging systems are unable to produce high-quality pouches with multiple compartments using different materials effectively, leading to issues with sealing and contamination between compartments.
Innovation Solution
A packaging system that uses a mould conveyor with suction chambers and a powder filling device featuring a rotor with dosing cavities to accurately fill compartments with minimal powder spillage, ensuring precise filling and effective sealing between water-soluble foils to prevent leakage and contamination.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Manufacturing precision
If a conventional filling device is used to fill the first compartment with powder, then the filling process is simple, but powder spills onto the foil outside the suction chamber causing poor sealing and contamination
Solution Approach 1:
The rotor is divided into multiple dosing cavities that can be independently filled and discharged. Each dosing cavity acts as a separate unit to precisely control powder transfer, preventing spillage onto the foil while maintaining a relatively simple overall device structure.
Solution Approach 2:
The rotor with dosing cavities serves as an intermediary mechanism between the powder supply and the compartment. It precisely controls the transfer of powder through the chamber inlet and outlet, ensuring accurate filling without direct contact between loose powder and the foil surface.
2Productivity
If the rotor rotates at high speed continuously, then productivity is improved, but filling accuracy decreases causing powder spillage
Solution Approach 1:
The rotor rotates periodically to bring dosing cavities to the chamber inlet for filling, then to the chamber outlet for discharge. This periodic motion allows synchronized control of powder transfer timing, maintaining both high speed operation and precise filling accuracy by ensuring powder is discharged only when the compartment is properly positioned.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses the positional feedback of the rotor and dosing cavities to control the timing of powder discharge. The chamber inlet and outlet positions are synchronized with the rotor rotation, ensuring powder is released only when a dosing cavity is correctly positioned, maintaining precision at high speeds.
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 system achieves accurate filling and sealing of pouch compartments, preventing powder from reaching the outer foil and minimizing contamination, thereby ensuring the separation of contents and maintaining pouch integrity.
Implementation Method 1
a suction device configured to suck the first foil into the first suction chambers and the second suction chambers
Implementation Method 2
a rotor which is provided in the rotor chamber and comprises multiple dosing cavities in an outer peripheral surface of the rotor, and a rotor drive configured to rotate the rotor about a rotor axis in a rotor direction in order to receive the powder in the dosing cavities at the chamber inlet and to discharge the powder out of the dosing cavities at the chamber outlet
Implementation Method 3
the powder filling device comprises a nozzle member forming the chamber outlet and the nozzle opening, and the nozzle member is attached to the housing such that it pushes against the rotor
Data Source
Figure 1A
Figure 1B
Figure 1C
AI summary
A packaging system (1) for producing pouches having multiple compartments and made from a first water-soluble foil (5) and a second water-soluble foil (6), which packaging system (1) comprises a mould conveyor (7) to move multiple moulds (8) in a conveying direction (9) along an endless trajectory, a suction device (14) configured to suck the first foil into the first suction chambers (11) and the second suction chambers (12), a first foil supplying device (16), a powder filling device (25) configured to fill the first compartment with a powder in an accurate manner, a further filling device (28) configured to fill the second compartment with a further powder or a liquid, and a second foil supplying device (17).