SUSPENSION FRAME FOR A SHIPPING PACKAGE

Abstract

A suspension frame for a shipping package having a main wall for article retention and a side wall transversal in respect of the main wall is provided. The main wall and the side wall are of cardboard, corrugated cardboard or the like cellulosic material. The main wall has a pattern formed by a plurality of cuts, and a face of the main wall opposite to the side wall is covered at least in correspondence of the pattern by an adhering crepe paper sheet.

Description

The present invention relates to a suspension frame for a shipping package.

A known suspension frame for a shipping package is disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 5,388,701.

This known suspension frame is of cardboard material to which a resilient member formed of a sheet of plastic is affixed.

Usually, two suspension frames are placed one atop the other in opposite configuration within a shipping box in order to obtain the shipping package. The plastic sheets of the two suspension frames are adjacent to each other, and an article to be packaged is suspended between these plastic sheets. The resiliency of these latter plastic sheets allows that the packaged article is suspended and able to move or bounce within the package in order to absorb bumps and crashes to which it may be subjected during transportation.

Nevertheless, this known suspension frame requires the use of plastic sheeting, whose disposal is quite burdensome.

An object of the present invention is thus the provision of a suspension frame which overcomes the drawbacks of the ones of the prior art.

According to the present invention, this object is achieved by means of a suspension frame for a shipping package, comprising a main wall for article retention and a side wall which is transversal in respect of the main wall, wherein said main wall has a pattern formed by a plurality of cuts, and wherein a face of said main wall opposite to the side wall is covered at least in correspondence of said pattern by an adhering crepe paper sheet.

The combination of the plurality of cuts in the main wall with the adhering crepe paper sheet provides suitable elastic properties and break resistance to the suspension frame and thus allows an effective and prolonged cushioning of the packaged articles. Such properties may be tailored to the needs of specific articles by selecting as desired the pattern and size of the cuts.

In this respect, it has to be noticed that the cuts may be either simple slices, in which no material is removed from the main wall, or may be formed by removing material therefrom.

Typically, the main wall and side wall are of cardboard, corrugated cardboard or the like cellulosic material, which is chemically analogous to the one constituting the adhering crepe paper.

Hence, the suspension frame of the present invention may be recycled quite simply, once used, without requiring any separation or sorting operation.

A further subject-matter of the present invention is constituted by a shipping package including a box containing at least one suspension frame as above disclosed, and preferably two suspension frames placed one atop the other in opposite configuration.

Advantageously, the box and at least one—in particular one or two—of the suspension frames of the shipping package of the invention are constructed as a monolithic whole from a single blank of cardboard material, a face of which is covered by an adhering crepe paper sheet in each part constituting the main wall of a suspension frame.

Typically, the main wall of the suspension frame of the present invention has a rectangular shape, including the particular case of “square”, and the associated box is a rectangular parallelepiped. Nevertheless, even if the above-mentioned shapes are certainly the most common due to their ease of production and optimal packing density when several packages are stored next to each other, any other shape may be used, such as e.g. polygonal, round, elliptical and so on, in order to better adapt to the articles to be packaged.

A further subject-matter of the present invention is constituted by a layered material comprising a basic layer of cardboard material having a face, at least a portion of which is covered by an adhering crepe paper sheet in correspondence of a pattern formed by a plurality of cuts.

Typically, the crepe paper is a heavily folded paper. The paper structure necessary to increase the extensibility is suitably achieved by compressing the paper web during production while it is still moist or by re-moistening it.

Such layered material is particularly, but not exclusively, intended for the production of the above-disclosed suspension frames and shipping packages.

An advantageous property of such material is that, even if it is composite and thus enjoys the benefits due to the combination of different constitutive components, it can be recycled without preliminary separation of the different constitutive components. Hence, such material is fully eco-sustainable, and can be collected in its entirety as paper, without requesting any of the separation steps which usually burden the recycling procedures of composite materials.

Further advantages and features of the present invention will be apparent from the following detailed description, given by way of non-limiting example with reference to the appended drawings, wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a suspension frame according to the invention,

FIG. 2 is an exploded perspective view of the suspension frame of FIG. 1,

FIG. 3 is a plan view of a blank usable for producing the suspension frame of FIGS. 1 and 2,

FIGS. 4 to 6 are schematic perspective views of successive steps of an insertion procedure of two suspension frames according to the previous figures in a box in order to obtain a shipping package for an article,

FIGS. 7 to 12 are plan views illustrating respective blanks usable for producing further embodiments of suspension frame according to the invention,

FIG. 13 is a plan view illustrating a blank usable for producing suspension frames integrated with a shipping box according to the invention, and

FIG. 14 is a plan view illustrating two blanks usable for producing a couple of suspension frames and a shipping box, respectively, according to the invention.

A suspension frame 8 for a shipping package comprises (FIGS. 1 and 2) a main wall 10 for article retention and a side wall 12 which is transversal in respect of the main wall 10.

The main wall 10 and side wall 12 are of cardboard, corrugated cardboard or the like cellulosic material.

The main wall 10 has a pattern 14 formed by a plurality of cuts, in particular shaped as a circular crown formed by a plurality of distanced curvilinear cuts which were effected without material removal and have a spiral aspect.

A face of the main wall 10 opposite to the side wall 12 is covered in correspondence of the cut pattern 14 by an adhering crepe paper sheet 16, which is applied e.g. by a lamination process. If suitable, the crepe paper sheet 16 may also extend beyond the perimeter of the main wall 10 and cover the adjacent portions of the side wall 12.

The main wall 10 is substantially rectangular and the side wall 12 is formed by two first side walls 12a opposite to each other and two second side walls 12b opposite to each other and orthogonal to the first side walls 12a.

Such general arrangement is well-known and obtainable by conventionally folding and gluing a blank 18 of cardboard material, which is illustrated in FIG. 3.

The blank 18 has folding lines which individuate the main rectangular wall 10, whose perimeter has two long opposite sides 20 and two short opposite sides 22, the two first side walls 12a being adjacent to the two short sides 22, respectively, and the two second side walls 12b being adjacent to the two long sides 20, respectively.

Each first side wall 12a consists of an internal flap 24 and an external flap 26 delimited by double folding lines 28 parallel to the short sides 22, wherein the definitions “external” and “internal” are referred to the erected configuration of the suspension frame 8. A free edge of each internal flap 28 has two spaced protrusions 30 suitable for insertion into respective recesses 32 adjacent to the short sides 22.

The second side walls 12b have at both ends respective wings 34 which are attached thereto by a prolongation of the folding lines defining the short sides 22.

At the end of the erection process, each protrusion 30 is inserted into the respective recess 32 and each wing 34 is arranged between facing end portions of a couple of internal 24 and external 26 flaps. The main wall 10 thus usually lies in a horizontal plane, whereas the side walls 12a, 12b lie in respective vertical planes delimiting an internal cavity. Such an arrangement is further stabilized by glue or adhesive strips 33 on side walls 12a, 12b.

In use (see FIGS. 4 and 5), two suspension frames 8 are placed one atop the other, with the respective crepe paper sheets 16 adjacent to each other, so that the internal cavity of the lower suspension frame 8 faces downwards and the internal cavity of the upper suspension frame 8 faces upwards. An article 36 to be shipped may thus be retained between the two suspension frames 8.

Such an assembly is then inserted within a parallelepipedal box 38 (FIG. 6), so as a package containing the article 36 safely retained between the lower and upper suspension frames 8 is ready for shipping.

FIGS. 7 to 12 illustrate respective plan views of blanks usable for producing further embodiments of suspension frame according to the invention, wherein features equal or equivalent to the ones disclosed with reference to the embodiments of the previous figures have the same reference number.

As matter of fact, such further embodiments differ from the one illustrated with reference to the previous figures essentially with regards to the arrangement and kind of the pattern 14 of cuts in the main wall 10.

The main wall 10 of the blank 18 of FIG. 7 has a cut pattern 14 shaped as a circular crown formed by a plurality of distanced curvilinear cuts which were effected with material removal.

The main wall 10 of the blank 18 of FIG. 8 has a pattern 14 shaped as a crown formed by a plurality of distanced curvilinear cuts effected without material removal, wherein the crown is formed by two opposite rectilinear lengths and two opposite semicircular lengths.

The main wall 10 of the blank 18 of FIG. 9 differs from the one of FIG. 8 in that the curvilinear cuts were effected with material removal.

The main wall 10 of the blank 18 of FIG. 10 differs from the one of FIGS. 1 to 3 in that the cut pattern includes two circular crowns formed by a respective plurality of distanced curvilinear cuts.

The main wall of the blank 18 of FIG. 11 has a cut pattern 14 consisting of two series of curvilinear cuts parallel to each other.

The main wall of the blank 18 of FIG. 12 has a cut pattern 14 shaped as a rectangle with corner protrusions.

FIG. 13 illustrate a further embodiment of blank for the production of a shipping package according to the invention, wherein features equal or equivalent to the ones disclosed with reference to the embodiments of the previous figures have the same reference number.

According to this embodiment, a single blank 18 allows to erect a parallelepipedal box containing two suspension frames arranged one atop the other in opposite configuration, so that they constitute a monolithic whole.

FIG. 14 illustrates two blanks usable for producing a couple of suspension frames and a shipping box, respectively, according to the invention, wherein features equal or equivalent to the ones disclosed with reference to the embodiments of the previous figures have the same reference number.

According to this embodiment, a blank 18a is conventionally folded and glued to obtain a parallelepiped shipping box. On the other hand, a separate blank 18b is conventionally folded to obtain two suspension frames attached to each other and having each a pattern 14 formed by a plurality of parallel cuts orthogonal to the cuts of the other suspension frame.

The structure formed by the two suspension frames may retain an article and be inserted into the shipping box analogously to the previously illustrated embodiments of the invention.

Naturally, the principles of the invention remaining the same, the details of construction and embodiments may be widely varied with respect to those described purely by way of example, without thereby departing from the claimed scope. In particular, any shape of the main wall and side wall and any arrangement of the pattern of cuts may be used in view of an optimal adaptation to the kind of article to be packaged. Furthermore, the side wall may also be discontinuous and/or have portions of different height orthogonally to the plan of the main wall.

Claims

1. A suspension frame for a shipping package, comprising a main wall for article retention and a side wall transversal in respect of the main wall, wherein said main wall has a pattern formed by a plurality of cuts, and wherein a face of said main wall opposite to the side wall is covered at least in correspondence of said pattern by an adhering crepe paper sheet.

2. The suspension frame of claim 1, wherein said main wall and side wall are of cardboard, corrugated cardboard or the like cellulosic material.

3. The suspension frame of claim 1, wherein said pattern is shaped as a circular crown formed by a plurality of distanced curvilinear cuts.

4. The suspension frame of claim 1, wherein said pattern is shaped as two series of curvilinear cuts parallel to each other.

5. The suspension frame of claim 1, wherein said main wall has a polygonal shape or a curvilinear shape.

6. A shipping package comprising a box containing at least one suspension frame according to claim 1.

7. The shipping package of claim 6, wherein the box contains two suspension frames that are placed one atop the other with respective crepe paper sheets adjacent to each other and retaining at least one article therebetween.

8. The shipping package of claim 6, wherein said box and the at least one suspension frame are constructed as a monolithic whole.

9. The shipping package of claim 8, wherein said box and one or two suspension frames are constructed as a monolithic whole.

10. A layered material comprising a basic layer of cardboard material having a face, at least a portion of which is covered by an adhering crepe paper sheet in correspondence of a pattern formed by a plurality of cuts.

11. The layered material of claim 10, wherein said crepe paper sheet is produced by a process in which a paper web is compressed while the paper web is still moist or re-moistened.

12. The suspension frame of claim 5, wherein the polygonal shape of the main wall is a triangular, rectangular, or hexagonal shape.