Patent Application
20220324614
The present invention generally relates to the field of liquid food containers, and particularly relates to an object which comprises a shell and a thin-walled bottle (typically made of plastic) which contains a liquid food such as non-carbonated mineral water. The invention therefore relates to an object which can be easily handled by a consumer.
It is known in the prior art containers for liquid food, and particularly thin-walled bottles made of plastic, for transporting and delivering mineral water to a consumer who wishes to consume quality water, with preserved flavor and quality. Such plastic containers or bottles are disclosed in documents WO201012956A1, WO201093602A2, EP1873067A1 or WO2014101957A1.
In return, the production of these plastic bottles can have an environmental impact, and recycling sectors must also be provided to minimize this impact.
In addition, it may be (economically or ecologically) interesting to minimize the thicknesses of these bottles, but it must be provided for the bottle to remain easy to handle, and not to deform or not too much when a consumer holds it (typically with a 20 Newton force). This aspect is particularly important for small capacity bottles (less than 2 L, preferably less than 1.5 L or even 1 L), because they are intended to accompany the consumer in his movements, and a risk of deformation (which leads to an overflow if the consumer strongly squeezes the bottle) must be minimal. Documents US20040124192A1, FR1114750A or DE29915618U1 describe bottles coupled to external structures. However, no document gives a practical and low-cost solution for providing a user with an object that is simple to use and to handle, particularly during a coupling or uncoupling phase.
Finally, document DE202005003527U1 discloses a device for the at least partial stiffening of thin-walled container handling areas, comprising a split body made of rigid material, including a fixing section, and able to be slid on the thin-walled container. Document U.S. Pat. No. D357,387S discloses a bottle handle. Document U.S. Pat. No. 7,909,202B1 discloses a bottle holder.
One aim of the present invention is to overcome the drawbacks of the documents of the prior art mentioned above and particularly, first of all, to propose an object to be held by a user, comprising an external structure and a bottle, easy and practical to manufacture, to use, particularly for the handlings reserved for the user (coupling, closing/opening of the bottle, uncoupling . . . ).
For that purpose, a first aspect of the invention relates to an object to be held by a user, comprising:
The object according to the implementation above is easy to handle, thanks to the elastic interlocking of the collar of the bottle on the shell. Such an elastic interlocking is also called snap fit. However, the shell has a U or C-shaped open upper collar, that is to say it forms an open clamp easy to open to insert or remove the collar of the bottle, which guarantees a moderate effort to apply for the user. However, the rigid shell reliably and robustly maintains the bottle, which provides an object that is easy to handle and to set up (coupling and uncoupling).
Advantageously, the shell comprises a side wall and a shoulder arranged between the collar and the side wall, and the shoulder comprises a passage opening arranged to provide a passage for the collar of the bottle, and the passage opening opens into the opening of the U or C of the upper collar of the shell. The passage opening allows inserting and presenting the collar of the bottle at the level of the opening of the upper collar of the shell, which provides easy installation.
Advantageously, the passage opening has a passage dimension greater than a passage dimension of the U or C of the upper collar of the shell.
Advantageously:
Advantageously, the shell comprises an introduction opening arranged in the side wall and arranged to allow a user to introduce the bottle into the shell. The introduction opening is typically located opposite the passage opening so that the bottle can simply pass therethrough and its collar can be positioned in the passage opening, the rest of the bottle easily passing in the introduction opening.
Advantageously, the collar of the bottle comprises a flange.
Advantageously, the collar of the bottle comprises a protuberance arranged, preferably under a flange, to engage in the opening of the U or C of the upper collar of the shell. Such a protuberance provides a rotational stop useful for opening and closing the bottle, especially if the bottle is equipped with a screw-on cap. However, other types of closing are possible, such as lids or hinged caps with elastic interlocking. Such a protuberance also provides an angular indexing, which allows for example guaranteeing that an inscription on the bottle will face an opening in the shell.
In other words, the bottle comprises closing means such as a screw-on or interlock top, a lid or a valve. The closing means may further comprise tamper-evident proof means such as a tamper-evident finish linked to the top by bridges to be broken during a first use. It can also be a lid sealed on the collar, to be removed permanently during the first use. The closing means may, where appropriate, comprise reversible means that allow closing the bottle again after a first use. This is the case, for example, with screw-on and screw-off tops. It is mentioned that the filled bottle is preferably closed by means of a screw-on or interlock top and provided with a tamper-evident finish whose bridges are not broken.
According to one embodiment, the top is arranged so as to be able to remain attached to the collar of the bottle after opening. The top can for example comprise a connection, in the form of at least one strip of material and/or a hinge, between a tamper-evident strip and the body of the cap or part of the body of the cap.
Advantageously, the bottle comprises a drinking liquid filling at least 80% of an internal volume of the bottle, preferably water, preferably non-carbonated water.
Advantageously:
Advantageously, the bottle has a concave, for example hemispherical, bottom and the shell has a bottom defining at least one planar support portion for laying the object along a vertical position. The planar or flat bottom allows providing a stable vertical bearing, although the thin-walled bottle alone, therefore soft by definition and whose bottom is hemispherical in shape, cannot be laid and held vertically on a work plane.
Advantageously, the shell has an external diameter and the bottom of the shell comprises at least one planar crown (that is to say contained in a plane), or support portions distributed along a planar crown (that is to say contained in a plane), the planar crown having a diameter greater than or equal to 50% of the external diameter. Such a crown can also be called a planar ring, that is to say contained in a plane, which provides a stable bearing.
Advantageously, the shell comprises at least one gripping handle, forming for example a handle. Two grips can be provided to facilitate the handling.
Advantageously, the bottle has a preferably cylindrical body with a thickness comprised:
Advantageously, the bottle has a bottom with a thickness equal by ±20% to the thickness of the body of the bottle, with the exception of a central portion of the bottom comprised in a diameter:
Advantageously, the collar of the bottle comprises a peripheral protuberance such as a flange on or under which the upper collar of the shell elastically interlocks.
Advantageously, the collar of the bottle and/or the peripheral protuberance, such as the flange of the bottle has a thickness greater than 150 μm, preferably greater than 200 μm and more preferably greater than 250 μm.
Advantageously, the bottle and/or the shell can have at least one cylindrical part. It is meant by “wall or cylindrical part” a shell or bottle portion which has a side surface whose generatrices are parallel straight lines, and which follow a base curve (defined by the intersection of the side surface with a plane perpendicular to an axial direction of the bottle) which is a closed curve. This closed base curve can have a circular shape (a circle), an oval shape (an ellipse or any oval shape) or a square or rectangular shape, where appropriate with rounded corners.
Such a section of the cylindrical part can improve the gripping, limit the flexibility and/or limit the risk of leakage when the bottle is opened.
Advantageously, the bottle is formed from polyethylene terephthalate (PET).
Advantageously, the bottle has an internal volume:
Advantageously, the upper collar of the shell has an upper rim, and the upper rim is formed over more than 180° relative to an axial direction of the object. In other words, more than half of the perimeter of the collar of the bottle is received and held by the open upper collar of the shell, which provides an effective holding.
Advantageously, the upper rim is comprised in a plane.
Advantageously, the shell is formed:
Advantageously, the shell has a thickness:
Advantageously, during an operation of coupling the bottle with the shell, the latter is arranged to be deformed less than the bottle. In other words, the shell is rigid and not deformable when it is handled by the user. Consequently, such a rigid shell allows handling a thin, soft and deformable bottle, which could not be handled on its own without a proven risk of overflowing or falling from the user's hands.
Other characteristics and advantages of the present invention will emerge more clearly upon reading the following detailed description of one embodiment of the invention given by way of non-limiting example and illustrated by the appended drawings, wherein:
In the represented example, the side wall 15 is cylindrical or substantially cylindrical (that is to say its external surface comprises parallel straight generatrices which follow a base curve, here a circle). The bottom 14 has for its part a lower plate, which allows laying the shell 10 along a vertical position, as will be discussed in
Furthermore, the shell 10 comprises a passage opening 12 mainly visible in
Finally, the upper collar 11 is a C-shaped (or U-shaped) open collar, as shown in
As explained above, the collar 21 is threaded to receive a cap 26, but other closing means can be envisaged (a lid, a hinged cap with elastic interlocking, etc.).
Indeed, and as represented in
To this end, and as visible in
To couple the bottle 20 with the shell 10, and as shown in
In detail, the upper collar 11 of the shell has a cylindrical rim of a few millimeters, the bottle 20 comprises the flange 20, and a cylindrical collar portion arranged between the flange 22 and the shoulder of the bottle 20, and the cylindrical rim of the upper collar 11 squeezes the cylindrical collar portion of the bottle 20, while coming into axial abutment with the flange 22, which provides an assembly of the shell 10 and the bottle 20.
To release the bottle 20 from the shell 10, it suffices to apply a transverse, lateral or skew force on the cap 26 to “unclip” the collar 21 of the bottle 20 out of the upper collar 11 of the shell 10. It is also possible to arrange an orifice in the lower part of the shell 10, opposite the introduction opening 13, to allow the user to push the bottle laterally out of the shell 10, with a finger.
As shown in
As already mentioned above, the cap 26 is screwed on the bottle 20. To provide a rotational stop of the bottle 20 relative to the shell 10, a protuberance 27 is provided on the bottle 20 to be housed in the opening of the upper collar 11 of the shell 10. Thus, a torque applied on the bottle 20 is transmitted to the shell 10 via the protuberance 27. It is possible to envisage other implementations for such indexing, such as a collar 21 of the bottle 20 with a non-circular section, crenellations at the level of the upper collar 11 which engage in counter-shapes of the flange 22.
Unrelated to the screwing/unscrewing of the cap 26, it is also possible to take advantage of the angular indexing between bottle 20 and shell 10 provided by the protuberance 27 engaged in the opening of the upper collar 11, to print or affix markings on the bottle 20, so that they are visible after coupling, and face the passage opening 12 or the introduction opening 13, or any other opening of the shell 10.
These implementations allow proposing a reusable shell 10 that is fairly rigid or at least not too flexible to be held (typically with a 20 Newton force) without significantly deforming, and proposing a very thin disposable bottle 20, and therefore too soft or too flexible to be held (typically with the same 20 Newton force) without deforming. This coupling allows proposing a disposable and recyclable bottle 20 manufactured with little material and yet with correct ergonomics, since the shell 10 is sufficiently rigid and reusable.
A strap or a wrist strap or textile loop and hook fastener strips (known under the trademark “Velcro”, or called scratch) can also be provided to allow the consumer to transport the object 30 in various activities (sport, hiking, etc.). It is also possible to provide for one or several grips on the shell 10.
Alternatively to the shell 10 of
The shell 10A comprises in particular two side edges 17 and 18 connecting the bottom to the shoulder, as can be seen in
Such an arrangement allows providing an integrated handle once the bottle 20 is coupled to the shell 10A. Indeed, as can be seen in
Thus, once the bottle 20 is coupled to the shell 10A, the user can easily grasp the object thus formed, via the first side edge 17. Such an implementation is a low-cost implementation and nevertheless offers a reliable coupling between the shell 10A and the bottle 20.
The bottle 20 is formed from a thin-walled thermoplastic material. The material is preferably a polyester such as polyethylene terephthalate (PET), poly-trimethylene terephthalate (PTT), polyethylene furanoate (PEF) or poly-trimethylene furanoate (PTF). It is preferably shaped by an Injection Blow Molding process, for example an Injection Stretch Blow Molding process. In these processes, a solid preform is manufactured by injection of the material into a mold and then by cooling, the preform is then heated in order to soften it, optionally stretched longitudinally using a rod, then stretched axially and longitudinally by blow molding in a mold in the shape of the bottle.
These polyester materials and methods are known to those skilled in the art. Their combination allows obtaining thin, light walls with good mechanical resistance and good sealing or other barrier properties. These properties are due to the orientation of the macromolecular chains at least partially inducing crystallization. In addition to saving material, these polyesters have the advantage of being easily recyclable. The recovery, sorting and regeneration sectors are organized. The regeneration can be a mechanical recycling involving melting and shaping, for example into granules prior to new plastics processing operations such as the injection blow molding or chemical recycling involving depolymerization, recovery of monomers or precursors, then a new polymerization.
The implementation and the use of the thin-walled bottles of the invention consequently presents a very advantageous environmental record, in addition to good practicality, in particular in relation to the implementation of non-activatable and thicker conventional PET bottles.
The thin wall is preferably such that the body of the bottle has a thickness within a range from 30 μm to 150 μm, for example in a range from 30 μm to 50 μm or from 50 μm to 70 μm or from 70 μm to 100 μm, or from 100 μm to 125 μm or from 125 μm to 150 μm, preferably in a range from 100 μm to 125 μm. The thickness mentioned is the thickness at least at one point of the body, preferably the average thickness over a portion representing at least 50% in length or in surface of the body, preferably at least 80%, preferably the average thickness over the whole body. The bottom of the bottle can be slightly thicker than the body, for example up to 50% thicker than the body, for example up to 20% thicker. The bottom can also have a cup typically corresponding to the bottom of the preform and at its injection point.
The thickness can be adjusted by adapting, for a target bottle volume, the characteristics of the preform, in particular its shape and the thickness of its walls, as well as the stretching characteristics. It is mentioned that the thickness of the preform walls, the geometry of the preform such as its length, its diameter and its bottom shape determine, together with the collar that may form a bottle neck, the weight. The unfilled, unclosed bottle and/or the preform generally have an identical weight. Subsequently, the weights given refer either to the bottle weights or to the preform weights. For a 75 cl bottle, it is advantageously possible to implement preforms from 8 to 13 g. The overall stretching rate can for example be comprised between 12.0 and 27.0, preferably between 15.0 and 20.0. The axial stretching rate (typically the ratio between the height of the bottle and the length of the stretchable part of the preform, typically the distance under the collar) can for example be comprised between 3.0 and 4.5. The radial stretching rate (typically ratio between the diameter of the bottle and the diameter of the stretchable part of the preform) can for example be comprised between 4.0 and 6.0. It is mentioned that the overall stretching rate is generally equal to the product of the axial stretching rate and of the radial stretching rate.
Good results are for example obtained with the characteristics below:
It will be understood that various modifications and/or improvements obvious to those skilled in the art can be made to the different embodiments of the invention described in the present description without departing from the scope of the invention defined by the appended claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| FR1910967 | Oct 2019 | FR | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP2020/077863 | 10/5/2020 | WO |
