Patent Application
20220127057
The present invention relates to a packing tray and assembly for shipping glass bottles, such as glass wine bottles.
Generally, wine is commonly shipped to consumers in several configurations and different types of packaging. Packaging for wine, and other types of beverages in glass containers may generally consist of a corrugated container having top and bottom trays along with bottle supporting elements, where these bottle supporting elements are commonly made from expanded polystyrene or molded fiber. Depending on the design of the packaging, the beverage bottles may be arranged in the packaging with the bottles either upright, laid down, or any other feasible orientation. Having the bottles shipped upright gives two advantages over being shipped laying down. First, the bottles can be easily re-inspected before sealing the package to make sure the contents are correct. Second, the bottles are strongest structurally when placed in vertical compression down the central axis of the bottle, preventing the bottles from easily breaking in shipment.
Wine bottles and other beverages in fragile containers often come in a myriad of shapes and several common sizes. Generally, one of the two most common sizes of wine or beverage distributed to consumers are the standard 750 ml and the magnum 1500 ml bottle size. Glass wine bottles are quite strong in compression but fragile when loaded in lateral shear or subjected to a sudden shock load. Both expanded polystyrene and molded fiber packaging materials help to absorb shock loading during shipping.
The molded fiber process draws liquid paper pulp against a mold under vacuum, where it is dewatered and consolidated into a solid article, where the article is then dried into a finished product. When using molded fiber to form beverage container packaging or shipping container, in order to remove the molded pulp article in one piece it is necessary that the mold must be designed with a draft angle. Generally, the greater this draft angle deviates from vertical Y axis, the more room there is for the product to maneuver within and be released from the mold.
The draft angle in a stand-up molded fiber wine shipper creates several issues. When a wine bottle is inserted into the top article of a packaging or shipping container, it will contact the article at the bottle top and the top rim portion of the bottle neck. Where the bottle bottom is inserted into the bottom article of the shipping container, similarly, it will contact the bottle bottom and the bottom rim potion of the bottle body and be more prone to breakage. When the package or shipping container is subject to a sudden lateral shock, the bottle will be loaded at the contacting points of the container. This will in turn cause the mass of the bottle and its liquid contents to apply a shear force to the bottle at the bottle's weakest point, at the transition from the bottle neck to the bottle body, which may cause the failure of the bottle.
Adding a center divider to the package or container eliminates the shear force to an extent, as the center support creates a support element near the center of mass of the bottle. While different center dividers have been used in several configurations, the dividers possess differing levels of success and have a number of weaknesses. Dividers of corrugated material tend to work poorly due to the inability to provide a mid-bottle support structure. Dividers of molded fiber with a ring-shaped hole tend to provide superior lateral support because they provide an enclosure for the bottle body, absorbing a part of the shear force near the center of mass of the bottle.
Further, much of the existing prior art designs of shipping containers utilize deformable elements for energy absorption in their top and bottom contact surfaces of the top, center and bottom trays. The prior art for deformable elements (See, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 5,335,770 to Baker, U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,409 to Baker, and U.S. Pat. No. 7,584,852 to O'Brien) use deformable elements as a primary feature in their packaging design, where the deformable elements are crushed under a load and used to cushion beverage bottles upon impact in shipping. Notably, when deformable elements formed from pulp and paper fibers absorb a load, the load causes a compression failure of a column of fibers, where the fibers are compressed and cannot recover their structural integrity. In other words, while the deformable elements absorb the shock effectively, the shape and design dimensions of the elements, together with the nature of the fibers only allow a one-time use of the deformable elements. Deformable elements are also less than ideal for shipping smaller diameter bottles, and are a very unwieldy design for the shipping and storage concerns of the center support.
What is desired, therefore, is a center support that may be used together with the top and/or bottom trays of a beverage container packaging assembly, where the center support design may provide a repeatable shock absorption, and would be able to accommodate a wider range of bottle diameters while retaining the maximum possible cushioning features to protect the bottles.
The present invention is for a bottle container shipping assembly, having resilient elements that can accommodate a wide range of bottle diameters, with reusable cushioning features to protect the bottles from breakage during the shipping process.
In one embodiment, a packing tray 10 for packaging glass bottles B, such as a glass wine bottle, the packing tray comprising:
a plastic foam or molded fiber sheet 12 comprising a top wall 14 and an array 20 of recessed cell pockets 22 extending from the top wall;
the top wall having a peripheral surface 18 surrounding the array of cell pockets and defining a top reference plane TRP;
each cell pocket 22 comprising an open ring-shaped recess 24 having an elongated longitudinal axis LA transverse to the TRP and configured to be substantially aligned with a longitudinal axis of a glass bottle disposed upright in the recess;
the ring-shaped recess 24 including an upper cell portion 26 of a first diameter FD larger than a body diameter BD of the glass bottle, and lower ring portion 28 having resilient elements 30 radially disposed and spaced apart about a circumference C of the ring-shaped recess 24 and that extend radially inwardly from the first diameter FD and configured to engage the body diameter BD of the glass bottle and bend under lateral stress LS such that the resilient elements provide repeatable shock absorption;
the peripheral surface 18 of the packing tray being sized to engage inner walls 42 of an outer shipping carton 40 in which the packing tray and glass bottles in the array of cell pockets are disposed for shipping.
In one embodiment, a packing assembly combined with one or more of:
a bottom tray (50) having an array 51 of bottom tray recesses 52 aligned along the LA direction with the ring-shaped recesses 24 of the packing tray 10, each bottom tray recess 52 having an open top end 53 configured to receive a lower body portion LBP of the glass bottle and a closed bottom end 54 configured to engage a closed bottom end CBE of the glass bottle;
a top tray 60 having an array 61 of top tray recesses 62 aligned along the LA direction with the ring-shaped recesses 24 of the packing tray 10, each top tray recess 62 having an open bottom end 63 configured to receive an upper neck portion UNP of the glass bottle and an upper portion 64 configured to engage and support the upper neck portion UNP of the glass bottle.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly wherein the packing tray 10 and the bottom tray 50 have complementary peripheral support members 14F, 55F configured to support the packing tray above the bottom tray.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly wherein the upper cell portion 26 of the packing tray 10 extends downwardly from the top wall 14 in the LA direction and includes one or more gaps 108G extending between adjacent recesses 24 of the packing tray.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly, wherein the packing tray has one or more recessed support posts 118 that extend downwardly from the top wall 14 in the LA disposed between adjacent recesses 24 of the packing tray.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly wherein the packing tray includes raised support posts 418 extending upwardly from the top wall 414 in the LA direction and disposed between adjacent recesses 424 of the packing tray.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly wherein the raised support posts 418 of the packing tray engage the top tray 460.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly wherein the top tray recesses 662 define a primary height PH of the top tray aligned in the LA direction, and the top tray has a plurality of top tray posts 618 disposed between the top tray recesses 662 that define a secondary height SH aligned in the LA direction that is less than the primary height PH, and the top tray recesses 662 and top tray posts 618 together define a ring-shaped cavity 619 to support the bottle neck BN of the glass bottle.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly wherein assembled packing tray 10 and top tray 60 define a gap G aligned in the LA direction in which a central body portion CBP of the glass bottle extends.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly of any prior claim, wherein the bottom tray 650 has divider walls 658 and posts 657 disposed between adjacent bottom tray recesses 652.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly of any prior claim, wherein the closed bottom ends 654 of the bottom tray recesses 652 have deformable elements 680 to absorb vertical stress in the LA direction.
In one embodiment, the packing tray or packing assembly of any prior claim, wherein one or more of the aligned recesses 24, 52, 62 of the packing tray 10, bottom tray 50 and top tray 60 are configured to accommodate glass bottles of different body diameters.
For a better understanding of the invention, and to show how the same may be carried into effect, reference will now be made, by way of example to the accompanying drawings, in which:
More specifically,
As shown in the embodiment of
As shown in
As shown in
In the present embodiment, an upper wall portion 26 forms an upper part of the ring-shaped recess 24 and has a diameter FD that is larger than the body diameter BD of the lower body portion LBP, enabling easy insertion of the glass bottle into the top end (upper wall portion 26) of the recess. A lower wall forms the lower ring portion 28 having a smaller diameter (than the upper portion 26) and includes the resilient elements 30 configured to engage the lower body portion LBP. The resilient elements 30 are provided in the shape of a tab, here comprising the bottom wall 15 of the central packing tray. The tabs 30 are spaced apart about the inner circumference C of the lower ring portion 28, and extend radially inward. The tabs are configured to first bend and then resiliently compress under lateral forces (transverse to the LA direction), protecting the bottle from breakage under such forces. The elements 30 being resilient will bend under such force and then when the force is removed, they will effectively resume their original shape and dimensions. The bending tab thus absorbs energy if a lateral force is applied to the wine bottle held in the recess. The central packing tray 10 may also have rounded corners 122 along its top surface, to mate with complementary rounded corners of the and top and/or bottom trays. As shown in
The recesses 24 of the central packing tray, and mating recesses 52, 62 of the top and bottom trays, may be generally circular in shape and may have varying diameters, depending on the size of the wine bottles being shipped within. In some embodiments, the recesses may have different diameters across the surface of the tray. In some embodiments, neighboring recesses 22A, 22F may share a common wall 108 with each other, where the walls may have one or more gaps 108G within the common walls to accommodate varying dimensions of the top tray. The gap 108 of the wall may be any shape or dimension, so long as the gap does not eclipse the neighboring recesses 22A, 22F.
In some embodiments, there may be one or more recessed support posts 118 positioned between the recesses, e.g., between four adjacent recesses 22A, 22B, 22E, 22F. The posts 118 may also be disposed between two recesses and the peripheral edge 18 of the top surface 14. The post 118 extends down from the top surface 14 in the lateral direction LA toward the bottom surface 15, and is preferably closed on the bottom end 118BE to provide greater strength. The post 118 may have a plurality of curved edges 118A, 118B, extending between the common walls 108, each curved edge having a dimension of less than a quarter of the circumference of the recess 24. The curved edges of the support posts may also have gaps 118G along the curved edges. The support post 118 may also include a number of tapered or pointed ends 114A, 114B, 114C that serve as deformable elements and absorb lateral shock while the shipping assembly SA and bottles B are in transit.
Referring to
As shown in the various embodiments disclosed herein, within the central packing tray 10, 410, 510, 610 each individual cell pocket recess may be generally circular and include a number of resilient elements 30, 430, 530, 630 distributed in a radial fashion along the inner circumference C of each cell pocket recess 22/24, 422/424, 522/524, 622/624. The resilient elements 30 each have a defined thickness (in the LA direction) and a tip end 30T extending inwards towards the center of the recess. The tip ends 30T may comprise a generally flat edge, or any other shape. In some embodiments, the resilient members 30 may be in different dimensions and shapes in addition to the tongue or tab shape shown in Figures, so long as the resilient members do not obstruct or prevent the bottle from being placed properly within the recess. The resilient elements 30 are designed to bend in service and the bottle cell pocket recess 22/24 can be sized to hold a much wider variety of bottle diameters.
The resilient element 30 is functionally superior to the deformable element in several ways. First, an element that is flexible and bending will deform with less stress per unit strain than an element in compression such as a deformable element. As such, a resilient element provides a softer stop or brake for the bottle when the bottle experiences lateral shock. More importantly, a resilient element will bend multiple times before failure, whereas a deformable element can only deform once for a given strain. As such, compared to a deformable element, a resilient member or element absorbs more energy prior to yielding. Finally, having the tips 30T of the resilient element in direct contact with bottles of different diameters serves to minimize the acceleration of the bottle from its neutral center position in the packaging, and lowers the lateral shock the bottle experiences or receives on impact.
In some embodiments, the central packing tray (and assembly) may be designed to hold either 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 bottles in a stand-up (vertical) arrangement.
Each post 618 may have a tapered or grooved portion in the vicinity of the recess, where the grooved portion functions as a draft angle, to allow for additional space and ease of removal of the beverage containers. In some embodiments, the grooved portions of multiple posts together may resemble a tapered annular ring, where the ring tapers or slopes inwards towards the recess, with the recess at the center of the multiple grooved portions. Between each vertical post 618, there may be a series of canals or passageways 670 formed in the tray and aligned to form a geometric pattern, so as to isolate and individually disperse the load received by the tray in transit.
As shown in
In a preferred embodiment, there may be deformable elements 680 in the form of a rib or a protrusion from the bottom surface, where the deformable elements may be placed along the bottom surface of the opening, so that the deformable elements may provide energy absorption. When used to cushion beverage bottles, the deformable element is designed so that it may be permanently crushed under a load. Notably different from the resilient elements, the deformable elements cannot recover their structural integrity once crushed and are not reusable as a feature. The deformable elements may come in varying shapes and designs so long as practical and functional. Generally however, deformable elements are not suitable for shipping smaller diameter bottles and are unwieldy for center support designs.
Referring to
It will be appreciated that the invention is not restricted to the particular embodiment that has been described, and that variations may be made therein without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the appending claims, as interpreted in accordance with principles of prevailing law, including the doctrine of equivalents or any other principle that enlarges the enforceable scope of a claim beyond its literal scope. In the various embodiments, complementary elements have been given similar reference numbers in each 100 series of reference numbers. Unless the context indicates otherwise, a reference in a claim to the number of instances of an element, be it a reference to one instance or more than one instance, requires at least the stated number of instances of the element but is not intended to exclude from the scope of the claim a structure or method having more instances of that element than stated. The word “comprise” or a derivative thereof, when used in a claim, is used in a nonexclusive sense that is not intended to exclude the presence of other elements or steps in a claimed structure or method.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 63105081 | Oct 2020 | US |
