Patent Application
20150239634
The present disclosure relates to a packaging support structure, for example a lightweight packaging structure conferring high protection to external mechanical forces.
Packaging is a key aspect in preserving product integrity, function and safety during handling, transportation and use. Common requirements for packaging are low cost, light weight and reasonable resistance to mechanical forces. In this regard, the use of corrugated materials has now become widespread in the packaging industry. The most notable example is paperboard although corrugated plastic sheets, overcoming some of the limitations associated with cellulosics, such as water absorption and consequent loss of mechanical properties, are also becoming standard in packaging. One example of such a material is alveolar polypropylene.
Alveolar materials, for example, comprise corrugated materials sandwiched between sheet layers and are designed and manufactured to offer adequate strength at low weight. In particular, strength in the direction of alveolar/corrugated walls is considerably higher than in the other directions and package folding ensures that this reinforcement is present in various directions. However, reinforcement is mostly concentrated at or near the edges (folds), and in the direction of the reinforcing walls. Typically the package faces are susceptible to impact and mechanical forces, in particular forces applied substantially perpendicular to relatively large area faces of the packaging.
It would therefore be desirable to provide additional support for packaging products, in particular where the products have pressure sensitive areas, such as elements protruding from an otherwise planar product. Aspects of this disclosure provide additional support structures for the product inside the package which may be of the same or of different material than the support structures. Beneficially, these internal structures provide adequate strength at low cost, are light weight and may enable high density packaging in order to minimise packing volume.
Aspects of the invention provide a packaging support structure comprising a material having first and second outer faces or layers spaced from each other by a spacer layer defining a plurality of voids between the first and second outer layer. A plurality of through-slots extending through the material and along a first direction are provided. The material is foldable in the region of the slots to produce a central fold along a second direction, substantially perpendicular to the first direction.
Advantageously, the described packaging support structure is able to accommodate a plurality of respective products in the slots in such a way that the products and slots cooperate to provide a stiff resultant structure that is resistant to compression forces along the second direction, the central fold in the second direction enabling the material between the slots to extend into a space created between the products to provide resistance to compression forces over a significant portion of the product area.
In some embodiments, a central cut along the second direction in one of the first or second layers facilitates folding the structure to produce the central fold by locally reducing the bending resistance of the material. This is particularly advantageous in embodiments where the planar stiffness of the material is high in the first direction. In some embodiments, the central cut is central in the sense that it bisects the through-slots. In other embodiments, the central cut may be off-centre to the through-slots to provide an asymmetric configuration.
In some embodiments, respective further cuts along the second direction can be present in the first or second layer on one or both sides of the plurality of slots to facilitate folding the structure to produce a respective further fold to one or both sides of the plurality of through-slots. Advantageously, this provides a side portion on one or both sides of the plurality of slots to support and stabilise the packaging support structure and products inside the packaging and further enable a more acute angle to be provided relative to the central fold than would otherwise be the case for given packaging and packaging support dimensions.
In some embodiments, the various cuts are made in the same outer layer (on the same side of the material). In other embodiments, one or more of the cuts are made in different layers, for example the cuts to the side of the plurality of slots being in one layer and the central cut being in another layer. The former has the advantage of increased manufacturing efficiency, while the latter ensures that all folds either open up to the outside or compress material to the inside, depending on the orientation of the folds.
It will be appreciated that the above embodiments are not limited to a single cut for each fold, but rather one or more additional cuts can be made in the region of one or more of the folds to facilitate folding, without departing from the above embodiments.
The material can be a sheet material in some embodiments, for example alveolar polypropylene. The spacer layer can comprise walls defining the voids there between and extending between the first and second outer layer and through the spacer layer along the second direction. This is advantageous since the high-strength direction of the material along the direction of the walls is aligned with the second direction along which compressive forces that can press objects in the slots together would act. This alignment therefore facilitates the overall strengthening of a combination of the support structure with objects in the slots along this direction, in particular where the wall portions between the slots are relatively short, which also facilitates improved packing density. However, other orientations of the walls are equally possible in other embodiments.
The spacer layer can comprise a corrugated sheet material. In some embodiments, the spacer layer comprises a spacer layer in which a cellular structure defines the voids. The spacer layer can be provided by any suitable lightweight material providing a layer of voids between the first and second outer layer, for example a rigid foam or honeycomb material.
The material can be folded in such a way that one or more of the cuts are on the outside of their respective fold, thereby opening up the spacer layer in the region of the cut and facilitating consistent folding. Alternatively, one or more of the cuts can be disposed inside the respective fold, adding strength to the structure by compression of the spacer layer in the fold.
Aspects of the invention extend to a packaging support structure as described above in combination with one or more objects to be packaged inserted in each slot. Advantageously, this arrangement can provide a high strength structure by virtue of an intimate fit between the objects and the support structure, as discussed above. For example, the objects can be disc-shaped. The arrangement is particularly advantageous where the objects have a protrusion extending from a disk or otherwise plate shaped portion, in that the material of the packaging support structure between the slots alleviates pressure on the protrusions. This is particularly advantageous where the protrusion is pressure sensitive, for example where the object is a lab-on-a-disk analytical device having a blister pouch with liquid, for example a buffer or reagent solution, secured to it. Space saving efficiencies can be achieved in embodiments where two such objects with respective protrusions are mounted back-to-back in a slot so that the protrusions face outward. Interference with protrusions from an adjacent slot can be avoided in such embodiments by appropriately orienting the discs in adjacent slots.
Aspects of the invention further extend to a container containing one or more packaging support structures for packaging support structures in combination with objects as described above. In embodiments where there is more than one packaging support structure, the packaging support structures can be arranged inside the container to be aligned along the second direction and/or to be disposed around the products about the second direction.
The container can be made by folding a material and can have outer surface areas which are prone to bending and deformation leading to ingress into the product containing space inside the container and application of pressure to products inside the container. Advantageously, packaging support structure(s) inside the container can be oriented such that the second direction is perpendicular to this outer surface area, thereby significantly strengthening the overall packaging in the direction in which this is most beneficial.
To facilitate the structural support function described above, the inner dimension of the container in the second direction can be substantially the same as the dimension of the one or more packaging support structures in that direction (total dimension in case of two or more packaging support structures stacked in that direction). The inner dimension of the container in the first direction can be smaller than the dimension in the first direction of the one or more packaging support structures to urge and maintain the packaging support structure into a folded configuration so that the interstitial material between the slots extends inside the space between the packaged objects in an intercalated fashion to provide support.
The above summary of the various representative embodiments of the invention is not intended to describe each illustrated embodiment or every implementation of the invention. Rather, the embodiments are chosen and described so that others skilled in the art can appreciate and understand the principles and practices of the invention. The figures in the detailed description that follow more particularly exemplify these embodiments.
A specific embodiment is now described by way of example to further the understanding of the present disclosure, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
While the invention is amenable to various modifications and alternative forms, specifics thereof have been shown by way of example in the drawings and will be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the intention is not to limit the invention to the particular embodiments as described. On the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents, and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.
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The effectiveness of the disclosed packaging solution has been tested by a compression test, applying a significant weight to the lid portion 32 which resulted in no significant ingress of the lid portion 32 into the container interior and no damage to the lab-on-a-disk analytical devices contained inside.
While a specific embodiment has been described above by way of illustration, it will be appreciated that the described principles are equally applicable to a wide range of products, in particular although not exclusively plate like configured products which have one dimension significantly smaller than the other two, in addition to a wide range of disk-shaped products other than lab-on-a-disk analytical devices. Products can be packaged one, two or more to a slot, as convenient for a given application. Equally, while specific materials have been described in the context of the embodiment described above with reference to the drawings, a wide range of materials having sheet-like outer layers separated by a lightweight spacer layer may be used for the packaging support structure and, indeed, the container. These materials may be of an alveolar, cellular, foam-like or any other suitable configuration. Further, different materials may be used for the container, if desired. Similarly, the number, dimensions and configuration of the described packaging support structure(s) will readily be adapted by a person skilled in the art without departing from the described principles.
More generally, numerous adaptations, modifications, combinations and juxtapositions of the features described above may be made without departing from the described principles.
