Continuous Tubular Element Shaping Guide Bar
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing machines for producing continuous tubular elements with a filling for cigarettes or aerosol generators face issues with maintaining the shape of the internal web during wrapping, leading to deformations and irregular cross-sections, which affects the precision and quality of the final product.
Innovation Solution
A machine that uses a guide bar to support and maintain the shape of the first continuous web, combined with pre-forming rollers and forming elements to shape the web into a predetermined configuration, and a gluing device to secure the outer web around the inner web, ensuring precise shaping and wrapping without deformations.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Shape
If the inner web undergoes shaping operation to form the insert, then the insert shape is obtained, but the inner web may undergo deformations and undesired folds during wrapping which alter the profile
Solution Approach 1:
The inner web is pre-shaped into the desired insert configuration before the wrapping operation begins. This preliminary shaping ensures that the insert maintains its intended profile throughout the subsequent wrapping process, preventing deformations and folds that would otherwise occur during wrapping.
Solution Approach 2:
A shaping element acts as an intermediary between the inner web and the wrapping process. This shaping element maintains the predetermined shape of the insert during wrapping, serving as a temporary support structure that prevents deformations and ensures manufacturing precision is maintained throughout the process.
2Ease of manufacture
If the filling insert fills the tubular element completely, then the wrapping operation can be performed, but the transversal cross-section of the filling insert must be substantially the same as that of the continuous tubular element
Solution Approach 1:
The filling insert is segmented or configured to fit within the outer tubular element without requiring complete filling. This allows the insert to have a different cross-sectional shape or size than the outer tube, enabling greater design flexibility and adaptability while still maintaining ease of manufacture through the wrapping operation.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of requiring the filling insert to match the outer tubular element's cross-section, the invention inverts the approach by allowing the insert to have a different cross-sectional configuration. The wrapping operation is designed to accommodate this inversion, enabling versatile product design while maintaining manufacturing feasibility.
Data Source
AI summary
A machine for making a continuous tubular element with filling from web material, including first and second means for feeding respective continuous webs, a forming station configured to perform a folding and/or deformation of a first continuous web in a shaped configuration, and a wrapping station wherein the second continuous web is wound in a tubular shape around the first continuous shaped web to obtain the continuous tubular element. Between the forming station and the wrapping station there is at least one guide bar about which the first continuous web is at least partly formed and/or guided.