Undulating Guide Channel for Pouch Sterilization
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Standup pouches with fitments pose challenges in aseptic filling due to difficulties in sterilization and costly threaded closures, and retaining them within cleaning equipment for adequate cleaning before insertion into an aseptic filler.
Innovation Solution
A pouch cleaning assembly featuring a treatment chamber with an elongated central channel and guide assembly, including side guide bars that create an undulating channel to expose points of contact between pouches for effective cleaning, along with grooves to direct cleaning fluid to inaccessible areas, ensuring thorough sterilization within an aseptic zone.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If standup pouches with fitments are used in aseptic filling, then product packaging versatility is improved, but sterilization difficulty increases
Solution Approach 1:
The guide assembly creates dynamic relative motion between adjacent pouches through the undulating channel, causing the points of contact between pouches to continuously change position. This dynamic interaction ensures that cleaning fluid can access and clean all surfaces of each pouch, including those that would otherwise be obscured by adjacent pouches, thereby achieving effective sterilization of the fitment areas.
Solution Approach 2:
The undulating channel acts as an intermediary mechanism that facilitates cleaning fluid access to difficult-to-reach areas. By creating a complex path through which pouches pass, the channel ensures that cleaning fluid is distributed to all surfaces, particularly the fitment areas that are critical for sterilization but would otherwise be inaccessible in a straight-channel configuration.
2Reliability
If pouches are retained within cleaning equipment, then cleaning effectiveness is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The guide assembly is segmented into multiple guide bars that define separate channels for different pouches. This segmentation allows each pouch to be independently guided and retained within the cleaning equipment, ensuring proper positioning and exposure to cleaning fluid while maintaining a relatively simple overall structure that can be easily manufactured and maintained.
3Reliability
If threaded closures are applied to pouches, then sealing reliability is improved, but manufacturing cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system enables self-service cleaning where the pouches themselves facilitate the cleaning process through their arrangement and interaction within the undulating channel. The relative motion between adjacent pouches automatically exposes all surfaces to cleaning fluid without requiring additional complex mechanisms, thereby reducing manufacturing costs while maintaining cleaning effectiveness.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
A pouch cleaning assembly that includes a treatment chamber and a guide assembly. The treatment chamber includes an elongated central channel extending therethrough. The guide assembly having a first side guide bar and a second side guide bar. The guide bars defining a channel therebetween that is structurally configured to facilitate the retention of spouts of a plurality of pouches in slidable engagement along the first and second guide bar. Any abutment of adjacent portions of the plurality of pouches within the treatment chamber define relative points of contact. The channel is positioned within the elongated central channel, wherein the channel is undulating in at least one of a vertical and a horizontal direction along the length thereof sufficient so as to substantially expose the relative points of contact between adjacent ones of the plurality of spouts so as to expose the same to the cleaning preparation.