Structure of Packing Material Inflated With Air

Abstract

Disclosed is a structure of a packing material inflated with air. Conventionally, the packing material inflated with air has a bad appearance due to protrusions formed at opposite sides of a lower end of its body, as well as generates a gap between its bodies when stacked in a storage box, and thus fails to allow the loading of a great deal of products in the storage box. The disclosed packing material inflated with air is formed so as to prevent the opposite side of the lower end of its body from protruding when spread, thereby creating beauty in appearance. Further, when a lot of the disclosed packing materials are stacked in the storage box, they are brought into close contact with each other, so that more products can be stably loaded in the storage box.

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to a structure of packing material inflated with air, and more particularly to a structure of packing material inflated with air, capable of, when the packing material is spread by air injection, preventing opposite sides of a lower end of a packing material's body from protruding to improve appearance of the packing material for its own sake, as well as, when a plurality of packing materials are stacked in a storage box, bringing the packing materials into close contact with each other to stably load more products in the storage box.

BACKGROUND ART

In general, packing materials has been used to prevent a finished product from being damaged by shock or scratch. Such packing materials must generally have light weight, and a certain degree of cushion and strength because they are held in a storage box together with the product. Conventionally, Styrofoam, corrugated cardboards, air gap bags, and the like have been used as the packing materials, but they have low functionality for the following reasons that it is difficult to process them in correspondence with various products, that they have low capability of absorbing and offsetting shock, and that they are not modified and used in a desired form when they are stored with a small volume and then packed with the product. In order to solve this problem, a packing material inflated with air, a so-called air packing box, has been used recently, which is adapted to further improve its function and to allow the product to be more stably protected from shock, scratch, and the like. The air packing box takes a desired shape by supplying itself with air using a separate air pump. The product is enclosed and packed by the air packing box, thereby being protected from being damaged by shock, scratch, and so on. This air packing box is spread by air supplied on opposite sides of a lower end of its body when inflated, and in the meantime protrudes outside its periphery. When the air packing boxes are stacked in a storage box together with products, protrusions of the opposite sides of the lower end of its body are brought into contact with each other, thus generating a gap between the air packing box bodies. Due to these protrusions, each air packing box provides bad appearance. Furthermore, due to the gap generated by the protrusions, several products are not loaded in one storage box when the air packing boxes are stacked in the storage box.

DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION

Technical Problem

Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is an objective of the present invention to provide a structure of a packing material inflated with air, capable of, when the packing material is spread by air injection, preventing opposite sides of a lower end of a packing material's body from protruding so as to improve the appearance of the packing material, as well as, when a plurality of packing materials are stacked in a storage box, bringing the packing materials into close contact with each other to stably load more products in the storage box.

Technical Solution

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a structure of a packing material inflated with air, which is characterized in that cutout sections are formed at opposite sides of a lower end of a packing material's body, and adhesion surfaces located between two air pockets adjacent to the cutout sections are formed with guide holes so as to be supplied with air from other air pockets. Thereby, when the packing material is spread by injection of air, the opposite sides of the lower end of the packing material's body are prevented from protruding outside a circumference of the body, so that when a plurality of packing materials are stacked in a storage box, the packing materials are stacked so as to be brought into close contact with each other, and that more products can be stably loaded in the storage box, compared to a conventional packing material inflated with air.

ADVANTAGEOUS EFFECTS

According to the present invention, when the packing material is spread by injection of air, the opposite sides of the lower end of the packing material's body are prevented from protruding, so that when a plurality of packing materials are stacked in a storage box, the packing materials are brought into close contact with each other, and thereby more products can be stably loaded in the storage box, and the packing material can be improved in its own appearance.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The foregoing and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a packing material inflated with air illustrating an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a development view of a packing material inflated with air illustrating an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view taken along lines A-A of FIG. 2; and

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view taken along lines B-B of FIG. 2.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

Reference will now be made in detail to the preferred embodiments of the present invention. The present invention provides a structure of a packing material inflated with air, which includes a pocket-like body (4) forming a plurality of air pockets (10) partitioned by adhesion surfaces (8) along a circumference thereof and opened at an upper portion thereof, an injection section (14) formed on one side of the body (4) and provided with an injection hole (12), an air passage (16) connected to the injection hole (12) and transversely disposed in the body (4), valves (18) connected to the air passage (16) and installed in the air pockets (10), and a cover (16) integrally extending from a rear upper end of the body (4) and formed so as to connect a plurality of air pockets (10) partitioned by the adhesion surfaces (8) to the air pockets (10) of the body (4), wherein the body (4) is formed with cutout sections (24) on opposite sides of a lower end thereof. Further, the adhesion surfaces (8) located on opposite sides of the front of the body (4) and between two of the air pockets (10) adjacent to the cutout sections (24) may be formed with guide holes (25), which pass through the adhesion surfaces (8) and are adapted to be supplied with air from other air pockets (10). Referring to FIGS. 1 through 4, first, an air packing box 2 adapted to hold a product is comprised of a pocket-like body 4 an upper portion of which is opened, and a cover 6 that integrally extends from a rear upper end of the body 4 (see FIG. 1). The air packing box 2 can be manufactured such that it is modified to a desired form according to a shape of the product to be packed. The body 4 includes a plurality of air pockets 10, which are partitioned and transversely arranged by adhesion surfaces 8 formed by high-frequency heating of internal and external packing films. The body 4 is formed with an injection section 14, which extends from one side of the body 4 and has an injection hole 12, so as to be capable of connecting a pump not shown. The injection section 14 is connected with an air passage 16 guiding a flow of air, and is disposed on the adhesion surface 8 located in the rear middle of the body 4 (see FIG. 4). The air passage 16 is provided with valves 18 (see FIG. 3), each of which controls the flow of air and is disposed in each air pocket 10 along a lengthwise direction at uniform intervals. The body 4 is formed at the rear upper end thereof with the cover 6, which integrally extends so as to allow a product to be protected from shock (see FIG. 3). The cover 6 is provided with the same air pockets 10, which are connected to the air pockets 10 formed at the body 4, and are partitioned and transversely arranged by the adhesion surfaces 8. Each air pocket 10 of the body 4 is formed in the middle thereof with bending adhesion surfaces 20, which allow a bottom 19 to be formed between front and rear lower portions of the body 4 when the air packing box is inflated with air to have a desired form. Each air pocket 10 of the cover 6 is formed with a bending adhesion surface 22, which allows the cover 6 to be folded at the rear upper end of the body 4. In this manner, at the front of the body 4, the air pockets 10, which are integrally connected to the air pockets 10 formed in the rear of the body 4, are partitioned and transversely arranged by the adhesion surfaces 8. Here, the air pockets 10, which are located at opposite sides of the front of the body 4, are separated from the air pockets 10, which are located at opposite sides of the rear of the body 4, by cutout sections 24, thus failing to be supplied with air from the valves 18. In order to solve this problem, the adhesion surfaces 8, which are located on opposite sides of the front of the body 4 and between two of the air pockets 10 adjacent to the cutout sections 24, are provided with guide holes 25, which pass through the adhesion surfaces 8 and allow the air supplied through the valves 18 to flow into the last air pockets 10 (see FIG. 2). Accordingly, the guide holes 25 cause the air pockets 10 with and without the built-in valves 18 to be connected to allow the air to flow to each other. The body 4, the cover 6, and the valves 18 can be made by selectively employing a plastic sheet, a vinyl sheet, a nylon film, a polyethylene film, and the like. Meanwhile, the opposite sides of the lower end of the body 4 are each cut out at 90 degrees by a predetermined size, thereby forming the cutout sections 24, which prevent corners of the lower end of the body 4 from protruding outside when the air packing box 2 takes a desired form by air injection. At this time, the cutout sections 24 may be concavely formed without being cut out at 90 degrees, or take another desired form. An operation of the present invention constructed as described above will be described below. First, when the pump (not shown) is driven after being connected to the injection hole 12 of the injection section 14 (see FIG. 2), compressed air flows along the air passage 16 through the injection hole 12 to the air pockets 10 individually divided through the valves 18. The air pockets 10 are inflated in a bulged form at a pre-determined pressure by the continuously supplied air, and simultaneously the air packing box 2 is spread to have a shape similar to a product. At this time, a part of the air supplied to the second air pockets 10 located on the opposite sides of the body 4 flows to and inflates the last air pockets 10 located on the sides of the opposite cutout sections 24. In this manner, the air flowing into the air pockets 10 remains in the air pockets 10 without leakage to the outside because the valves 18 close by themselves due to air pressure. In this state, when external shock is applied to the air packing box 2, the air filled in the air pockets 10 serves as a cushion, thus absorbing and offsetting the external shock. As such, the shock is interrupted by the air pockets 10, and thus is not transmitted to the inside of the air packing box 2. The spread body 4 as described above has opposite upper and lower portions, which abut on the bending adhesion surfaces 20, formed as sidewalls and the bottom 19, respectively. At this time, the cutout sections 24 formed on the opposite sides of the lower end of the body 4 are spread, and in the meantime, edges of the air pockets defining each cutout section 24 move toward each other. Therefore, when the air packing box 2 is spread by the injected air, the opposite sides of the lower end of the body 4 take the form of a straight line without protruding outside. In this state, when the product is placed into the air packing box 2, the body 4 is further spread out. Hence, the edges of the air pockets defining the cutout sections 24 formed on the opposite sides of the lower end of the body 4 further approach each other. Afterwards, when the cover 6 is pushed aside with the bending adhesion surfaces 22 adopted as a boundary, the cover 6 closes the upper portion of the body 4, thereby covering an upper end of the product. Accordingly, the air packing box 2 is in a state of completing packing. These air packing boxes 2 are input and stacked in a storage box (not shown). In this case, these air packing boxes 2 are loaded in a longitudinal and transverse arrangement in close contact with each other because each of them has no protrusion outside its periphery.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

According to the present invention, the packing material inflated with air is improved so as to provide no protrusion outside its periphery due to the cutout sections formed on the opposite sides of the lower end of the air packing box body when the air packing box is spread by air, wherein a plurality of air packing boxes are stacked in close contact with each other when stacked in one storage box, so that more products can be stably loaded in the storage box. Further, the packing material inflated with air of the present invention can be applied to any packing material inflated with air that is used as a shock-absorbing means when packing the product by inflating it with the supplied air. While this invention has been described in connection with what is presently considered to be the most practical and preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiment and the drawings, but, on the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and variations within the spirit and scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. (canceled)

2. (canceled)

3. A structure of an inflatable packing material, comprising:

a body formed of a plurality of longitudinally extending air pockets partitioned from each other by adhesion surfaces along a circumference thereof, the body having a lower portion forming a front, a lower middle portion forming a bottom, an upper middle portion forming a back, an upper portion forming a cover, and side portions extending from both sides of the back and both sides of the front;

an injection section formed on one side portion of the body and provided with an injection hole;

an air passage connected to the injection hole and transversely disposed in the body; and

valves connected to the air passage and installed in the air pockets traversed by the air passage;

wherein the side portions do not extend adjacent the bottom of the body so as to form cutout sections on opposite sides thereof.

4. The structure according to claim 3, wherein the air passage is transversely disposed in the upper middle portion forming the back of the body and extends to the opposite side portion of the back.

5. The structure according to claim 4, wherein adhesion surfaces located on opposite sides of the front of the body and between the side portions extending from the front of the body are formed with guide holes that pass through the adhesion surfaces for inflation of the side portions extending from the front of the body.

6. The structure according to claim 3, further comprising adhesion surfaces extending partially transverse to each air pocket at respective intersections of the front, bottom, back and cover of the body.

7. The structure according to claim 3, further comprising a connection between side portions extending from each side of the back and front so as to form a box structure.