JP-7856299-B2 - Shrink packaging apparatus and shrink packaging method

JP7856299B2JP 7856299 B2JP7856299 B2JP 7856299B2JP-7856299-B2

Inventors

西田博之
宮崎敦郎

Assignees

株式会社フォーネット社

Dates

Publication Date: 20260511
Application Date: 20220525

Claims (3)

A shrink packaging apparatus comprising: an article supply unit for supplying articles having a hexahedral shape; a film supply unit for supplying heat-shrinkable shrink film; an article storage unit for storing the articles in a storage unit made of shrink film to form an article storage bag before heat shrinking; and a heating unit for shrink-packaging the stored articles by heating the formed article storage bag to heat-shrink the shrink film, wherein The article having the hexahedron shape is a booklet formed by laminating multiple printed sheets having a rectangular planar shape to a predetermined thickness. The film supply unit is equipped with a perforation forming device for forming perforations along the supply direction of the shrink film, thereby providing an easy-tear line on one side of the hexahedral booklet after shrink packaging. The perforation forming apparatus includes a disc-shaped round knife equipped with a plurality of protruding cutter blades arranged at intervals in the circumferential direction, wherein the plurality of protruding cutter blades are arranged in a continuous manner only in a portion of the circumferential direction, so as to form a plurality of unit perforations constituting the perforation, which are 0.5 to 1.0 mm long and spaced 3.0 to 6.5 mm apart at 6 to 15 locations on a hypothetical straight line traversing one side of the booklet, and the heating section is configured to include a first heating tunnel located on the upstream side in the feeding direction and a second heating tunnel located on the downstream side in the feeding direction. The first heating tunnel is equipped with an upper pressing belt that moves up and down relative to the conveyor belt, and moves the article storage bag being conveyed between it and the conveyor belt while covering and sandwiching its upper and lower surfaces. The second heating tunnel is configured to move the article storage bag by a conveyor belt with the top surface of the article storage bag open. A shrink packaging apparatus comprising the first heating tunnel, which first heats and shrinks the shrink film covering the outer surface of the article in the article storage bag, and then the second heating tunnel, which heats and shrinks the remaining portion of the shrink film covering the booklet to shrink the booklet.
The shrink packaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the round knife of the perforation forming apparatus is configured to form the perforations with a plurality of protruding cutter blades while rotating with the shrink film sandwiched between the round knife and a rotating roller that winds and guides the shrink film in the supply direction.
The shrink packaging apparatus according to claim 2 , which includes a reciprocating mechanism for moving the round knife back and forth relative to the rotating roller.

Description

This invention relates to a shrink packaging apparatus and shrink packaging method for shrink packaging a booklet, which is an article having a hexahedral shape, using a heat-shrinkable shrink film. Conventionally, shrink packaging using shrink film, a heat-shrinkable synthetic resin film, has been known as a packaging method for various items, such as instant noodles. Shrink packaging involves forming a tubular shape from shrink film with pinholes on its surface, placing the item inside, sealing and cutting both ends, and then passing the resulting item-containing bag through a heating element to heat and shrink the shrink film, thereby packaging the item with the shrink film tightly pressed against the surface. Various packaging devices for implementing this type of shrink packaging have been developed (see, for example, Patent Document 1). The shrink packaging apparatus described in Patent Document 1 includes an article supply unit for supplying articles, a film supply unit for supplying shrink film, an article storage unit for placing articles in shrink film bags to form article storage bags, and a heating unit for heating the formed article storage bags. When the article storage bags pass through the heating unit, the shrink film is heated. Through the synergistic effect of the shrink film's contraction and the subsequent expansion of air inside the article storage bags before being expelled through pinholes, a shrink-packaged article is obtained in which the shrink film is tightly pressed against the surface of the article. Japanese Patent Publication No. 2007-99356 This is a schematic side view illustrating the configuration of a shrink packaging apparatus according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.This is an enlarged view of section A in Figure 1, illustrating the process of forming perforations in shrink film using a perforation forming device.(a) is a front view illustrating a round knife, and (b) is a cross-sectional view of (a) taken along line B-B.(a) is a schematic perspective view showing a shrink-film packaged article formed by a shrink-wrapping device, (b) is a front view of the shrink-film packaged article, and (c) is a schematic enlarged view of section C in (b).This is an enlarged schematic side view illustrating the first heating tunnel that constitutes the heating section.This is an enlarged schematic side view illustrating the second heating tunnel that constitutes the heating section.This is an enlarged schematic side view illustrating the goods supply section. The shrink-wrapping apparatus 10 shown in Figure 1, according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, is used as an apparatus for forming a hexahedral shrink-film-wrapped article 50 (see Figure 4) by covering a booklet 50', formed by laminating multiple sheets of printed paper having a rectangular planar shape to a predetermined thickness, with a shrink-wrapping film 20. The shrink-wrapping apparatus 10 of this embodiment has the function of easily shrink-wrapping booklets 50', particularly those with flexible covers such as comics and paperbacks, while maintaining their hexahedral shape. The shrink packaging apparatus 10 of this embodiment comprises an article supply unit 11 for supplying articles having a hexahedral shape, a film supply unit 12 for supplying heat-shrinkable shrink film 20, an article storage unit 13 for storing articles in a storage unit made of shrink film 20 to form an article storage bag 51 before heat shrinking, and a heating unit 14 for shrink-packaging the stored articles by heating the formed article storage bag 51 to heat-shrink the shrink film 20, thereby shrink-packaging the stored articles to form a shrink-film-packaged article 50. The article having a hexahedral shape is a booklet 50' formed by laminating a plurality of printed sheets having a rectangular planar shape to a predetermined thickness (see Figure 4). The heating unit 14 is configured to include a first heating tunnel 25 located on the upstream side in the delivery direction and a second heating tunnel 26 located on the downstream side in the delivery direction. As shown in Figure 5, the first heating tunnel 25 is equipped with an upper pressing belt 25b that moves up and down relative to the conveyor belt 25a, and moves the article storage bag 51 being transported between the conveyor belt 25a while covering and sandwiching its upper and lower surfaces. As shown in Figure 6, the second heating tunnel 26 moves the article storage bag 51 by the conveyor belt 26a with the top surface of the article storage bag 51 open. In the first heating tunnel 25, the shrink film 20 covering the outer periphery of the booklet 50' (the article) in the article storage bag 51 is heated and shrunk first. Then, in the second heating tunnel 26, the remaining portion of the shrink film 20 covering the booklet 50' is heated and shrunk, thereby shrink-wrapping the booklet 50'. Furthermore, in this embodiment, a perforation forming