Patent Application
20200047393
The present invention relates to a blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing a bottle having a handle and a method for using the same.
The working process of a conventional blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing bottles is generally to make a preform by injection molding, and then subject the preform to blow molding to obtain a finished bottle. However, the relationship between the ejection molding mechanism and the bottle blowing mechanism of different types of blow molding machines is very different.
The blow molding machine can be roughly divided into one-stage blow molding and two-stage blow molding. The difference is that the injection molding mechanism of the two-stage blow molding is usually at a certain distance from the blowing mechanism. Therefore, after the preform is injected molded by the injection mechanism, a conveyor belt needs to be used to move the preform to the blowing mechanism. With this two-stage molding, the preform must be reheated after cooling down and then can be blow molded, therefore, the two-stage molding is also known as the “cold preform molding” in the industry. However, before being moved to the blowing mechanism, the preform cannot be directly processed by the blowing mechanism due to the fact that the orientation of the preform has been changed. For this reason, it is necessary to use a preform positioning/orientation mechanism to pre-position the preform, then the preform can be blow molded. As a result, the manufacturing process is complicated, there are numerous mechanisms on the manufacturing line, and energy consumption is large.
In addition, one-stage molding, also known as direct blow molding, is to first injection mold a preform in the molten state on the same injection blow molding machine, and then stretch and blow mold the molten preform in a hollow mold. With this one-stage molding, the preform is stretched and blow molded when it is not cooled, namely, by the blow molding is performed by taking advantage of the heat retained by the molten preform, and therefore, it can also be called as hot preform molding.
However, one-stage molding is only applicable to the molding of the bottle of general type, namely, the bottle having uniform thickness and without a handle. If it is necessary to produce a bottle with a handle or a bottle of non-uniform thickness, a rather complicated manufacturing process is required, as described below, with reference to
A machine 70 has a turntable 71, a motor 72 and a plurality of worktables 73. The motor 72 is drivingly connected to the turntable 71 to drive the turntable 71 to rotate. Each of the worktables 73 is disposed on the turntable 71. In addition, an injection station 741, a temperature regulating station 742, a blowing station 743 and a take-out station 744 are cooperated with each of the worktables 73. Since the handle of the bottle body with a handle does not need to be subjected to a blow molding process, the preform must be cooled to a stable state before the blow molding operation, and then it can be moved to the blowing station 743. However, the thickness of the handle is normally thicker than the thickness of the bottle. Therefore, when the handle of the preform is cooled to a lower temperature, the bottle body of the preform has already been cooled down to a state in which it cannot be directly blow molded. For this reason, the temperature regulating station 742 must be set between the injection station 741 and the blowing station 743 to heat the preform to a temperature at which the blow molding can be performed, which, however, will lead to the problems of cumbersome operation procedure and excessive energy consumption.
In order to solve the aforementioned problems, there is a need for a blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing a bottle having a handle and a method for using the same, which is low in energy consumption and simple in mechanism.
The present invention provides a blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing a bottle having a handle, the main objective of which is to reduce energy consumption.
Another objective of the invention is to simplify the mechanism and reduce costs.
The present invention further provides a method of using the aforementioned blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing a bottle body having a handle, the main objective of which is to reduce energy consumption.
Another objective of the invention is to simplify the mechanism and reduce costs.
To achieve the above objectives, a blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing a bottle having a handle, the bottle having a handle is made from a bottle preform having a handle portion, the bottle preform includes a body portion connected to the handle portion, the body portion has a bottle thickness, the handle portion has a handle thickness which is greater than the bottle thickness, and the blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing the bottle having the handle comprises:
A method for using the blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing the bottle having the handle, comprises:
As described above, each of the preform holders has a local temperature regulating device, the local temperature regulating devices are disposed around the handle portion, the rotary joint supplies liquid or gas continuously to the local temperature regulating devices of the preform holders to perform continuous temperature regulation for the handle portion, thereby overcoming the problem that the temperature needs to be immediately cooled after the injection molding, and temperature of the body portion can be maintained, so as to achieve the purpose of reducing energy consumption.
Furthermore, the present invention adopts a one-stage molding, so that the bottle perform can be directly processed with local blowing molding process without being rotated, thereby effectively simplifying the manufacturing mechanism and reducing the cost.
These together with other objects of the invention, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the invention, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure. For a better understanding of the invention, its operating advantages and the specific objects attained by its uses, reference should be had to the accompanying drawings and descriptive matter in which there are illustrated preferred embodiments of the invention.
The present invention will be clearer from the following description when viewed together with the accompanying drawings, which show, for purpose of illustrations only, the preferred embodiment in accordance with the present invention.
Referring to
The machine 10 includes a turntable 11 having a plurality of worktables 12, each of which is equiangularly disposed on the turntable 11, and each of the worktables 12 includes at least one preform holder 121. Each of the preform holders 121 is provided for holding a bottle preform P, and each of the preform holders 121 has a local temperature regulating device 121A.
The rotary joint 50 is disposed on and rotates along with the turntable 11, and is in communication with each of the preform holders 121 of the worktables 12. Preferably, the rotary joint 50 is in communication with the local temperature regulating device 121A. The rotary joint 50 is provided for supplying liquid or gas to each of the local temperature regulating devices 121A to perform continuous temperature regulation for the handle portion P2. In an embodiment, the liquid is cooling water.
The injection device 20 has an injection body 21 and a preform mold (not shown). The preform mold is disposed under the turntable 11, and the preform mold is aligned with one of the worktables 12. The injection body 21 is connected to the preform mold, and cooperates with the corresponding worktable 12 to form the bottle preform P on each of the preform holders 121. The method of injection molding the bottle preform P is prior art, the details of which are not explained in detail.
The bottle preform P includes: a body portion P1 and a handle portion P2 connected to the body portion P1, and the body portion P1 has an inner surface IS and an outer surface OS. The inner surface IS extends to the outer surface OS by an extension length which is a bottle thickness D1. The handle portion P2 is solid, and has a handle thickness D2 which is defined as an extension length between two opposite sides of the handle portion P2. The handle thickness D2 is greater than the bottle thickness D1, and the local temperature regulating devices 121A of each of the preform holders 121 are disposed around each of the handle portions P2 to perform continuous temperature regulation for the handle portion P2.
The blowing device 30 is disposed below the turntable 11, aligned with a corresponding one of the worktables 12, and has a first mold 31 and a second mold 32 which are movable relative to each other. The number of the mold holes of the first mold 31 and that of the second mold 32 correspond to the number of the preform holders 121. The first mold 31 and the second mold 32 are disposed around the body portion P.
In a preferred embodiment, the present invention further includes a gripping device 40 disposed around the machine 10 to grab the bottle having a handle formed by the blow molding process.
The present invention further provides a method for using the blow molding machine suitable for manufacturing a bottle having a handle, as shown in
While we have shown and described various embodiments in accordance with the present invention, it is clear to those skilled in the art that further embodiments may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
