This application is a §371 of International PCT Application PCT/FR2011/051894, filed Aug. 10, 2011, which claims §119(a) foreign priority to French patent application 1004124, filed Oct. 21, 2010.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of devices for packaging carbon dioxide snow inside a plastic film.
2. Related Art
It is known that frozen, deep-frozen or even fresh products, notably foodstuffs, which have to be kept at a controlled temperature of +2° C. to −20° C., or even less, with no break in their cold chain from the time that they are cooled, frozen or deep-frozen to the time of their use, require warehouses, means of transport and stores which are fitted with refrigeration installations, which at the present day are generally electric. However, in many cases, it is impossible to transport the products without removing them from the refrigeration installation in which they are being stored, and the risks of a rise in temperature are then great, particularly if the climatic conditions are unfavorable. In order to avoid such a rise in temperature during their transport, it is common practice for such products to be placed in an environment that is kept at a controlled temperature in an isothermal chamber. Temperature regulation is ensured for example by slow sublimation of carbon dioxide snow packaged in bags made of perforated plastic film. Carbon dioxide snow is a relatively inexpensive product which has an attractive refrigeration value: 573 kJ/kg of snow. Its temperature of around −80° C. ensures that the products can be kept cold for relatively lengthy periods.
By way of illustration, reference may be made to document EP-1 186 842 which describes a device for automatically and continuously packaging carbon dioxide snow in a plastic film.
Reference may also be made to documents FR-2 604 243 or EP-823 600, or even to U.S. Pat. No. 5,271,233 which describe cooling blocks containing a mass of carbon dioxide snow.
Reference may also be made to document EP-1 090 259, which describes a method and an installation for obtaining cooling blocks made up of a wrapper made of a porous material (capable of withstanding low temperatures of below 1° C.) containing a mass of carbon dioxide snow enclosed and contained in the wrapper, the wrapper being made of a material which, as this document indicates, has a “porosity to air of between 100 and 500 m3/m2/mn for an air pressure of the order of 196 Pa”, for example made of a nonwoven polypropylene.
A manual bagging machine is therefore a piece of equipment which, using a source of liquid CO2, can be used, by expansion, to generate carbon dioxide snow directly in bags made of a porous material (generally woven polypropylene). The amount of snow can be adapted according to the injection time used, and according to the supply pressure of the liquid CO2. The equipment available on the market generally seeks to be able to fill several bags simultaneously.
The injectors installed on the manual bagging machines available are usually formed of perforated tubes.
By way of example, as schematically illustrated in the attached
Each injection pipe has an injection orifice machined along its length, and it will therefore be appreciated that, in order to change the injection delivery rate, it was necessary to remove one or more of the injection pipes and modify (remachine) the injection orifice, something which represents a complicated exercise offering little flexibility.
This configuration of the prior art did, on the other hand, ensure perfect rigidity, something which is needed for comfortably introducing the bags and for removing the bags.
One of the objectives of the present invention is therefore to propose a new installation making it possible to improve this matter of flexibility and notably to achieve greater ease with which the delivery orifices can be varied to suit the needs of a user site (the site where the bags are filled) to vary the delivery output.
As will be seen in greater detail in what follows, the installation proposed by the present invention is essentially characterized in that it comprises:
It will have been appreciated from reading the foregoing that:
Indeed the configuration in which there is just one orifice for each of the injection pipes is actually preferred in order to minimize the risks of blockage by the formation of snow, achieving this by maintaining a perfect “continuity of fluid” between the CO2 source and the one single orifice of each injection pipe, although other situations and operating conditions could justify the presence of one or more injection pipes with several orifices without leading to the risk of blockage, for example in order to cope with high delivery throughputs.
However, here too it is possible, without in any way departing from the scope of the invention, to conceive that one or more of the injection pipes of the installation might have an orifice not of threaded diameter D but of threaded diameter D′, larger than or smaller than D, which would make it easier to adapt to the varying needs of the user site.
By way of illustration, according to one of the implementations of the invention, all the threaded orifices of the installation have a diameter D=8 mm, and the screw-in nozzles have an inside diameter d=4 mm or 3 mm for example.
However, according to another embodiment of the invention, one or more of the injection pipes of the installation are equipped with a threaded injection orifice the diameter of which is 8 mm, whereas one or more of the injection pipes of the installation are equipped with a threaded injection orifice the diameter of which is not 8 mm but 10 mm, which allows nozzles of inside diameter of 5 or 6 mm to be fitted (screwed into) them.
According to one advantageous embodiment of the invention, the screw-in injection nozzles take the form of a hollow cylindrical body over just part of their length, whereas over the rest of the nozzle (the part opposite the part of the nozzle that fits into the injection orifice corresponding to it) they adopt a conically flared shape, which flared bottom part can then be smooth (plain) or otherwise on the outside, the advantage of this arrangement being that it limits the risks of the nozzle being screwed fully home into the threaded injection orifice which would then present difficulties with extracting the nozzle when the time comes to change it.
The present invention therefore relates to an installation for obtaining cooling blocks made up of a wrapper made of a porous material, containing a mass of carbon dioxide snow enclosed and retained in the wrapper, the installation comprising:
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become more clearly apparent from the following description, given by way of entirely nonlimiting illustration, given with reference to the attached drawings in which:
According to one embodiment of the invention, all the injection pipes of the bagging machine are as per the injection pipe of
Should it prove necessary, to meet the needs of the user site, to change the injection delivery rate, then all that is required is a change of nozzle, from within the set of nozzles depicted here, and therefore the diameter injecting into the bag, and this can be done immediately, without major intervention, without welding, etc., and can be done for just one or for several of the injection pipes of the bagging machine.
It may be pointed out that having available a set of nozzles in 0.1 or 0.2 mm size increments is highly advantageous because this configuration makes producing the same quantity of snow for each injection pipe easier (the discrepancies are linked to the pressure drops between the first injection pipe to be fed and those that follow), this being done by very finely adjusting the inside diameter of the nozzles connected from one injection pipe to another (this will be illustrated further on in the present application).
If the screw-in injection nozzles of
The invention is illustrated hereinbelow via practical examples of how the invention is used, obtained under the operating conditions detailed hereinafter.
Use was made of an installation of the type of that of
The protocol observed was as follows:
Based on a given injection time (50 s), the nozzles are adjusted in order to determine the optimum configuration for obtaining the most uniform possible quantity of snow across the 5 bags.
The following conclusions can be drawn:
While the invention has been described in conjunction with specific embodiments thereof, it is evident that many alternatives, modifications, and variations will be apparent to those skilled in the art in light of the foregoing description. Accordingly, it is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications, and variations as fall within the spirit and broad scope of the appended claims. The present invention may suitably comprise, consist or consist essentially of the elements disclosed and may be practiced in the absence of an element not disclosed. Furthermore, if there is language referring to order, such as first and second, it should be understood in an exemplary sense and not in a limiting sense. For example, it can be recognized by those skilled in the art that certain steps can be combined into a single step.
The singular forms “a”, “an” and “the” include plural referents, unless the context clearly dictates otherwise.
“Comprising” in a claim is an open transitional term which means the subsequently identified claim elements are a nonexclusive listing i.e. anything else may be additionally included and remain within the scope of “comprising.” “Comprising” is defined herein as necessarily encompassing the more limited transitional terms “consisting essentially of” and “consisting of”; “comprising” may therefore be replaced by “consisting essentially of” or “consisting of” and remain within the expressly defined scope of “comprising”.
“Providing” in a claim is defined to mean furnishing, supplying, making available, or preparing something. The step may be performed by any actor in the absence of express language in the claim to the contrary.
Optional or optionally means that the subsequently described event or circumstances may or may not occur. The description includes instances where the event or circumstance occurs and instances where it does not occur.
Ranges may be expressed herein as from about one particular value, and/or to about another particular value. When such a range is expressed, it is to be understood that another embodiment is from the one particular value and/or to the other particular value, along with all combinations within said range.
All references identified herein are each hereby incorporated by reference into this application in their entireties, as well as for the specific information for which each is cited.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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10 04124 | Oct 2010 | FR | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/FR2011/051894 | 8/10/2011 | WO | 00 | 4/19/2013 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2012/052638 | 4/26/2012 | WO | A |
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
3063258 | Szachnitowski | Nov 1962 | A |
5715685 | Takasugi | Feb 1998 | A |
20020029584 | Gibot et al. | Mar 2002 | A1 |
20090266031 | Flamant et al. | Oct 2009 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
---|---|---|
0 717 246 | Jun 1996 | EP |
0 823 600 | Feb 1998 | EP |
0 990 836 | Apr 2000 | EP |
1 090 259 | Apr 2001 | EP |
1 186 842 | Mar 2002 | EP |
2 604 243 | Mar 1988 | FR |
WO 99 67585 | Dec 1999 | WO |
Entry |
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International Search Report for PCT/FR2011/051894, mailed Oct. 10, 2011. |
French Search Report for FR 1 004 124, mailed Apr. 15, 2011. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20130206282 A1 | Aug 2013 | US |