Abstract: Apparatus for packaging articles in a controlled atmosphere, such as one created by a vacuum followed by the addition of gas, such as carbon dioxide, provided within a flexible container having an open end. The packaging apparatus includes a frame and a support one the frame for the flexible container, which is preferably supported within a rigid outer container, to maintain a substantially fixed position for the articles in the flexible container. A fixed elongated member or manifold is mounted on the frame and includes an upwardly and forwardly angled sealing surface. The fixed elongated member cooperates with a movable elongated member or manifold which is operatively mounted on the frame and includes a sealing face which is movable into cooperative relationship with the sealing surface of the fixed manifold. The movable manifold is movable between a position which is spaced from the fixed manifold and a second position which is adjacent or against the sealing surface of the fixed manifold.

Abstract: A heat-sealable foil is shaped around a shaping pipe to form a tube and during removal from the shaping pipe is provided with transverse seams by means of transverse heating jaws. The resulting bags are filled by means of a fill pipe and a dosaging worm or auger. A conduit leads from the lower end of the shaping pipe to a bellows and to a bottle of protective gas. The bellows forms a closed chamber whose volume is periodically increased and reduced in the operating rhythm of the bag forming apparatus by means of drive members. Thus the pressure conditions at the end of the shaping pipe can be influenced periodically, so as to avoid that the filled or sealed bags contain undesirable air inclusions or, when filling under protective gas, so as to avoid greater losses of protective gas from leaking into the open air.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for the automatic filling of plastic bags with, for example, elastic, soft and deformable contents. In order to provide for the automatic handling of empty bags without intermediate, especially manual, steps, the invention provides that the empty bags are attached by extending flaps to a plastic carrier web across a tear line. The apparatus of the invention places a quantity of goods into the bag by means of an axially moving filling piston which passes between spreadable jaws that hold the bag open. The continued motion of the filling piston eventually exerts a force sufficient to cause fracture along the tear line and separation of the filled bag from the flap which stays attached to the carrier web. The piston then moves the filled bag into position for sealing. A number of embodiments is presented.

Abstract: A bag support and dispensing apparatus including a sleeve that is passed through aligned apertures in a stack of bags to support the bags. A collar at the back end of the sleeve is detachably engaged with a support member. The forward end of the sleeve has a flange that is dimensioned to readily pass through an enlarged aperture in the top portion of the front wall of a bag when the front wall of the bag is pulled in a forward direction. The flange is also dimensioned to resist passing through a smaller aperture in the top portion of the back wall of the bag to allow the bag to be held in an open position for receiving articles. A loaded bag is disengaged from the sleeve by pulling the bag in a forward direction with sufficient force to distend the smaller rear aperture so that the flange passes through the smaller aperture to release the back wall of the loaded bag.

Abstract: A case packer and/or case unloader apparatus especially but not exclusively designed for packing small bottles in an orderly pattern into a shipping carton, or conversely, removing a case load of such bottles from a carton has a horizontally reciprocable carriage from which is suspended a vertically movable lifting frame. This frame carries spaced pairs of bars movable lengthwise relative to each other. Each bar has a spaced series of depending container engaging fingers with the fingers on one bar having lateral projections thereon extending in a direction opposed to lateral projections on the fingers of the other bar. By sliding the two bars of the pair in opposite directions, the fingers will approach or recede from each other. With the fingers of each pair close together, the frame may be lowered to enter a pair of fingers into the neck of each bottle of a prearranged group. By then moving the bars in opposite directions, the projections on the fingers engage the interior of the bottles.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for making a reclosable package from a forming web, a covering web and a closure strip. The closure strip is indented at desired intervals and sealed at its lower surface to the forming web. A cavity is formed in the forming web after which a product is placed therein and covered with the covering web. After evacuating the space therebetween the covering and forming webs are sealed together with longitudinal and transverse seals which enclose the product and the closure strip. The upper surface of the closure strip is sealed to the covering web so that when the package is severed between the closure strip and an adjacent longitudinal seal, the closure strip may be opened for access to the product.

Abstract: A pair of jaws operable in a common plane between an open and closed position for the selective clamping of a plastic tube or the like, one of the jaws being selectively shiftable out of the common plane in the open position and automatically returned to the common plane upon a closing movement of the jaws.

Abstract: This invention relates to method and apparatus for producing a composite container having a tubular sleeve mounted precisely thereon adapted to be shrunken into final surface covering position. The tubular sleeve is preformed of relatively-flexible thin material and flat-folded until ready for use when it is opened and conveyed into axial registry with the container. The sleeve preform of heat-shrinkable plastic material is telescopically assembled onto the container and the container is then firmly retained at an upper region. A reciprocatable apertured head contacts the preform while so retained and further telescopes the preform at least partially over the container. With the reciprocatable apertured head then stationarily maintained, the container is elevated so that the apertured head further lowers the preform into finally-aligned position on the container where it is adapted to subsequent heat-shrinking in place in permanent conforming arrangement.

Abstract: An apparatus incorporating a microprocessor control is provided for automatically loading nuclear fuel pellets into fuel rods commonly used in nuclear reactor cores. The apparatus comprises a split "V" trough for assembling segments of fuel pellets in rows and a shuttle to receive the fuel pellets from the split "V" trough when the two sides of the split "V" trough are opened. The pellets are weighed while in the shuttle, and the shuttle then moves the pellets into alignment with a fuel rod. A guide bushing is provided to assist the transfer of the pellets into the fuel rod. A rod carousel which holds a plurality of fuel rods presents the proper rod to the guide bushing at the appropriate stage in the loading sequence. The bushing advances to engage the fuel rod, and the shuttle advances to engage the guide bushing. The pellets are then loaded into the fuel rod by a motor operated push rod.

Abstract: A semi-automatic bag filling and weighing machine is disclosed including a rotatable indexing table supporting a bag at four spaced locations around the table, a conveyor device for supplying articles to be weighed and filled into the bags, a weighing and filling station to which the bags are moved by the indexing table, a weighing and sensing device for actuating power cylinders operating in conjunction with the filling station, the indexing table and other control devices to move the indexing table so as to replace a filled bag with an empty bag at the filling station. Quick release bag clamping devices are also provided.

Abstract: A bagger for automatically forming and sealing a plurality of bags of predetermined size and filled by a predetermined weight of content from a single, continuous plastic sheet.

Abstract: There is provided an apparatus for detecting irregular arrangement of accumulated coins for use in a coin packaging machine wherein a predetermined number of accumulated coins are delivered from an accumulating cylinder to a packaging zone by a pair of delivery arms and packaging them in the packaging zone. The pair of delivery arms, an upper delivery arm and a lower delivery arm, is constructed so that it is rotatable between a coin accumulating zone and a coin packaging zone and vertically slidable to engage with and disengage with the accumulated coins in the coin accumulating zone. The delivery arms are insulated from each other. A detection circuit is provided for detecting the irregular arrangement of the accumulated coins by sensing the height of the upper delivery arm indicating at the irregular arrangement of the accumulated coins.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for packaging flexible duct material comprises positioning the duct material in a guide means, slidably moving a contact means into contact with the duct material to compress it into a carton, partially closing the end of the carton, and removing the contact means from the carton.

Abstract: A machine for folding the top flaps on a succession of boxes which are advanced on a conveyor belt. A shaft extends across the path of the boxes and has arms journaled on it for rotating and folding the trailing end flap of each box when the shaft is rotated. Torsion springs have one of their ends fastened to the shaft and another of their ends in driving contact relationship with the respective arms. When a box is in a position for one of its end flaps to be folded, limit switches are actuated in succession to cause an electrically operated clutch to turn the shaft one revolution so the arms swing around under the driving influence of the torsion springs and fold and hold the trailing top end flap until the box is advanced to the position where its end flaps are finally restrained by folding and holding its side flaps.

Abstract: Apparatus and method for making disposable thermometers of a laminated construction containing an array of liquid-crystal droplets, requiring precise registration of the stretchable substrate layer, the droplets and the temperature markings, wherein the substrate film web from which the thermometers are formed is provided with wide margins for handling in the forming machine to provide strength and avoid stretching and heat deformation. The substrate film web is precisely directed through the machine by suitable guide members and is held at the marking, filling, and heat-seal processing stations by suitable vacuum chucks, the chuck at the heat-sealing station being particularly adapted for cooling the web to avoid unwanted heating of the crystal droplets. A cam-operated transporter is used for precisely indexing the movement of the film.

Abstract: A bagging machine which automatically encloses a garment in a bag. A continuous web of flexible material is fed into the machine, separated to form a tube, and that tube of material is pulled down over the garment. Material pulldown is stopped according to the length of the garment, the material is sealed, cut off from the web of material, then pulldown is completed to force a hanger through the top of the bag thus formed. In the preferred embodiment, pneumatic cylinders are used, and no electric motors are required. A hanger mechanism supports a garment in a manner which permits that garment to accommodate misalignment with respect to the machine, and the web separator is self-adjusting.

Abstract: A machine for automatically filling cans, especially flat cans with substantially rectangular contour, with goods of elongated configuration which, in a filling station, are manually laid into a horizontally continuous row of receptacles open at their adjacent ends and mounted on the links of an endless conveyor chain. The machine includes a cutting device for dividing the piece of goods between the adjacent ends of each receptacle, for supplying the cans with their facing downward in continuous row to a location where the conveyor chain initiates a downward movement around a sprocketwheel. As the conveyor chain rotates about the sprocketwheel, the distance between the individual receptacles is increased enabling a can supplied by the guide device to be placed over and surrounding each receptacle, the contents of which falls down in the can at the bottom of the sprocketwheel.

Abstract: To place the bags on a filling spout, the bags are hurled one at a time w the valve flange through a shaping tube, which is distanced from the spout as to allow the filled bag to be removed from the spout without displacing the tube. The bag is hurled at high speed by at least one continuously moving belt engaging the bag body along the entire length of the tube, as to be placed on the spout substantially when the valve flange leaves the tube. This latter is formed of two symmetric parts, the distance between which is adjustable by means of double screws having two ends threaded in opposite directions and engaging corresponding holes of the two parts of the tube.

Abstract: A box packing machine in which containers such as bottles are fed continuously to form a group of a given number with certain rows and columns and the containers in one group are spaced apart one another at a predetermined distance before being loaded into a box such as a carton. A container space regulating unit is reciprocatingly movable between the first position and the second position defined in the box packing machine. The container space regulating unit receives containers of a given number at the first position. The containers carried on the space regulating unit are spaced apart one another at a predetermined distance while they are being transported to the second position, where the containers are transferred into a box in unison.

Abstract: The invention concerns the packaging of commodities into vacuum-sealed packs formed from sheet plastics packaging material. In accordance with this invention, the packaging material is formed from a two-layer laminate the inside layer of which has a much lower softening point than the outside layer. The commodity is sandwiched between two sheets of the packaging material and is passed to a vacuum chamber in which it is sealed between the two sheets under reduced pressure. Simultaneously the material is heated to a temperature at which the inner laminate softens, and when the chamber is aerated, the heated material collapses around the commodity and the inner layers fuse together around the margins to form a highly effective hermetic seal around the commodity.