This application is the National Stage of International Application No. PCT/EP2012/067175, filed Sep. 4, 2012, which in turn claims priority to and benefit of European Patent Application No. EP11290424.8, filed Sep. 15, 2011. The entire contents of the aforementioned applications are herein expressly incorporated by reference.
This specification relates to a smoking article, apparatus for making the smoking article and machinery for making a wrapper for use in the smoking article.
Embodiments of a smoking article described herein comprise a rod of smokeable material and a tubular support in which the rod is slidably received between a retracted position and an extended operative position, wherein the tubular support has been formed from a blank of sheet material wound in a spiral.
The tubular support may be formed by rolling the blank about the longitudinal axis of the tubular support such that opposed edges of the blank that extend longitudinally of the tubular support overlap and are attached to one another in their region of overlap.
Also described is a method of making a smoking article comprising a rod of smokeable material and a tubular support in which the rod is slidably received between a retracted position and an extended operative position, comprising winding a blank of sheet material in a spiral to form the tubular support.
Also described is a smoking article including a rod of smokeable material, a filter segment and tipping paper attaching the filter segment to one end of the rod, the tipping paper being wound in a spiral around the filter segment and a portion of the rod.
Machinery for manufacturing smoking articles is described which includes a cutting station for cutting wrapper banks from a web of sheet material, the blanks having a non rectangular periphery such that they can be wound in a spiral around a smoking article rod, and a gluing station to apply adhesive such that the blanks have adhesive applied to edge regions thereof and a major portion the surface of the blanks remain free of the applied adhesive.
In order that the invention may be more fully understood, an embodiment thereof will now be described by way of illustrative example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
The rod 1 of smokeable material may comprise tobacco or like material 4 wrapped in a paper wrapper 5 which in use is lit at distal end 6 of the rod 1. A filter segment 7 made for example of cellulose acetate material is attached to proximal end 8 of rod 1 by tipping paper 9 in a manner well known per se. Referring to
The tubular support 2 is formed by rolling a blank n illustrated in
The tubular support 2 has a re-entrant flap 14 at its distal end 15. As shown in
In use, the smoker manually extends the tobacco rod 1 from the retracted, storage position shown in
Referring to
When laid flat as shown in
A region of adhesive 19 is applied along the region of edge 17a so that the edges 17a, 17b can be attached to one another by means of the adhesive in their region of overlap. The blank 11 is conveniently made of tipping paper material although other suitable sheet materials can be used. The sheet material of blank 11 may have a weight of 40-45 gsm and the outer sheet 13 may have a weight of 50-60 gsm but these ranges are by way of illustrative example only.
Prior to rolling the blank 11, the minor portion 14 of the blank is folded inwardly to form the re-entrant flap shown in
It has been found that by winding the blank n of sheet material in a spiral, there is minimal tendency for the diameter of the tubular support to increase from the proximal end 13 to the distal end 15 and in this way, the tubular support 2 can be wound tightly at the distal end 15 onto the tobacco rod 1 to ensure that the re-entrant flap 14 reliably engages with the step 10 to prevent the rod 1 from being pulled completely out of the tubular support 2. By way of comparison, if the blank 11 were made rectangular and with longitudinal edges running parallel to the longitudinal axis X-X′ of the tubular support 2, there would be a tendency for the re-entrant flap 14 to be a loose fit around the tobacco rod which may result in the rod being completely released from the tubular support when moved to the extended configuration shown in
If the angle θ shown in
An example of manufacture of the smoking article will now be described by way of illustration with reference to
As shown in
As shown in
Machinery for forming the blanks n that are supplied to the rolling machine of
Referring to
The folding station shown 29 shown in
The gluing station 30 shown in
The impression roller 35 is in rotary engagement with a transfer roller 37 and has a cylindrical surface 38 that receives the pattern of adhesive 19′, 25′ from the impression roller 35 to form pattern 19″, 25″ as shown in more detail in
The cutting station includes a cylindrical cutting roller 40 that includes elongate cutting blades 41 arranged with equal spacing around the cylindrical circumference of the roller 40, at angle θ to the axis of rotation Y-Y′ of the roller 40. The web with the pattern of adhesive applied as previously described (not shown in
An input roller arrangement 44 for the cutting station controls the phase and tension of the web 26 as it passes between the cutting roller 40 and the support roller 43. The input roller arrangement 44 includes first and second web guide rollers 45, 46 between which is mounted an eccentric guide member 47 that can be turned about axis Z-Z′ to apply a variable force against the upper surface of the web 26 and thereby controllably vary the tension and phase of the web 26 entering under the cutting roller to ensure that the cuts made in web 26 occur with equal spacing, so as to produce banks 11 of equal size and shape reliably.
The folding station 29, gluing station 30 and the cutting station shown in
Another example of smoking article is shown in
The tubular support 2 comprises a spiral wound blank 11 as described previously that is glued to the filter 12 at the buccal end and includes a re-entrant flap 14 at the distal end to retain the rod 1 within the support 2. Outer wrap 13 is glued to the entire outer surface of the spiral blank 11. An activating wrapper 48 is glued or otherwise affixed to the buccal end of the filter 7 overlying the tipping paper 9 and so the rod 1 can be slid outwardly from the position shown until the wrapper 48 abuts the flap 14. The interior surface of the spirally wound blank 11 over which the activating wrapper 48 slides is coated with a material 49 that can modify characteristics of the smoke, which is activated by the sliding action. For example, the material 49 may comprise frangible microcapsules that contain a flavourant, which are broken open when the wrapper 48 passes over them allowing the flavourant to mix with smoke from the rod 1 passing to the smoker. Alternatively, the material 49 could comprise activated charcoal or other smoke fraction adsorbents. The material 49 can be laid in rings or other patterns so that as the rod 1 is pulled outwards an audible sound and/or a modulated resistance to the pulling force needed to extend the article is produced, indicating activation to the smoker. The material may be applied from a roller (not shown) in region A for each blank 11 shown in
In the previously described manufacturing process, individual smoking articles are produced but the smoking articles can be produced in pairs back-to-back as illustrated in
Many modifications and variations will be evident to those skilled in the art. For example, the outer wrapper 13 need not be rectangular and could be wound in a spiral rather than having an axially extending but joint between its longitudinal edges. The spiral of the outer wrapper 13 can be of opposite hand to that of the spiral wound blank 11 to provide additional strength to the tubular support 2. Also, the outer wrapper 13 can be omitted entirely if its strengthening characteristics for the tubular support are not required.
The tubular support 2 need not necessarily be wound in situ as shown in
The blank 11 can also be used in other situations. For example the blank n formed of tipping paper, can be used to attach a filter segment to one end of a rod of smokeable material in a situation where the tipping paper is porous such as to provide a path for ventilation air into the filter when the smoker draws on the smoking article. Since glue is only applied to edge regions of the blank 11, the major portion of the surface area of the blank remains uncoated with glue such as to exhibit a level of porosity that can provide a ventilation path that is unimpeded by the glue.
In order to address various issues and advance the art, the entirety of this disclosure shows by way of illustration various embodiments in which the claimed invention(s) may be practiced and provide for superior smoking articles, wrappers and methods of making the same. The advantages and features of the disclosure are of a representative sample of embodiments only, and are not exhaustive and/or exclusive. They are presented only to assist in understanding and teach the claimed features. It is to be understood that advantages, embodiments, examples, functions, features, structures, and/or other aspects of the disclosure are not to be considered limitations on the disclosure as defined by the claims or limitations on equivalents to the claims, and that other embodiments may be utilised and modifications may be made without departing from the scope and/or spirit of the disclosure. Various embodiments may suitably comprise, consist of, or consist essentially of, various combinations of the disclosed elements, components, features, parts, steps, means, etc. In addition, the disclosure includes other inventions not presently claimed, but which may be claimed in future.
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11290424 | Sep 2011 | EP | regional |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/EP2012/067175 | 9/4/2012 | WO | 00 | 10/17/2014 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
WO2013/037664 | 3/21/2013 | WO | A |
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20150034100 A1 | Feb 2015 | US |