Multiply built up buffer structure and manufacturing method thereof
The present invention provides a multiply built up buffer structure and a manufacturing thereof. The buffer structure includes at least two buffer members and a pair of end caps. The buffer member is made of paper material, having an elongate strip configuration having a U-shaped cross-section forming a hollow chamber shaped to correspond to the configuration thereof. The hollow chamber extends between and completely through opposite ends of the buffer member. One of the buffer members is movably received in the hollow chamber of the other buffer member to form an extendible strip. The end cap is made of paper material, having a U-shaped configuration forming therein a hollow chamber corresponding in shape to the configuration thereof. The hollow chamber extends between and completely through opposite ends of the end cap. The hollow chamber of the end cap receives at least one reinforcement piece made of paper material therein. The pair of end caps is respectively and movably fit into opposite ends of the extendible strip in accordance with the hollow chambers of the respective buffer members.
The present invention relates to a multiply built up buffer structure and a manufacturing method thereof, and in particular to a buffer structure and the manufacturing method thereof, which is used to encase a product to be protected for providing effects of resisting pressure, drop, and impact between a package box and the product to be protected and is applicable to electric appliances, computers, various kinds of monitor screen, electronic products, mechanical products, and other fragile products.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONTo convey or ship a product to be protected, such as electric appliances, computers, various kinds of monitor screen, electronic products, mechanical products, and other fragile products, the product is wrapped with an enclosure buffer material to provide buffering effect between a package box and the product to be protected, whereby protections of the product can be secured during the transportation or shipping thereof.
Conventional buffering materials are often made of Styrofoam, which is known to be non-environment-conservative, bulky, and having drawbacks of occupying a large amount of container space and increasing transportation costs resulting from bulkiness thereof. Other disadvantages, such as insufficient resistance against pressure, drop, and impact, are often found.
The conventional buffer 900, however, has the following disadvantages: (1) insufficient resistance against pressure, drop, and impact; (2) requiring a devoted mold and unique material for manufacturing for each specific product to be protected thereby, apparently leading to excessively high costs and a waste of natural resources; (3) potential risk of generating odors in a humid and high temperature condition (such as being stored in a container for maritime transportation) due to the fact that the buffer 900 is made of pulp molding; (4) poor resistance against humidity and temperature and thus being not suitable for maritime transportation; and (5) insufficient resistance against pressure, making it impossible to be high stacked for after-packaged stacking.
Thus, it is desired to provide a solution to overcome the above discussed problems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTIONA first objective of the present invention is to provide a multiply built up buffer structure and a manufacturing method thereof, wherein a unique structural design and a multiple-structured arrangement are employed to provide improved resistance against pressure, drop, and impact between a package box and a product-to-be-protected so as to realize excellent strength of pressure resistance and applicability of high stacking of the packaged products. With a telescopic structure provided by the present invention makes it possible to apply to various sizes of products to be protected to thus realize reduction of costs and conservation of natural resources.
A second objective of the present invention is to provide a multiply built up buffer structure and a manufacturing method thereof, wherein with the improved resistance against pressure, drop, and impact that the present invention offers, the thickness of the buffer structure can be made small, and further, buffer members, end caps, and even stop blocks can be made with the same mold, leading to further reduction of costs and better conservation of resources.
A third objective of the present invention is to provide a multiply built up buffer structure and a manufacturing method thereof, wherein an elongate stop block is selectively set in an encasing channel of the buffer structure, the applicability of the buffer structure is made wide.
A fourth objective of the present invention is to provide a multiply built up buffer structure and a manufacturing method thereof, wherein the buffer structure 100 is made of paper material comprising base paper, such as corrugated boards, rather than being formed with pulp molding, and thus effects of such as generating no odor, being humidity resistant, being temperature durable, and being suitable for maritime transportation, can be realized. Other advantages, such as small size, occupying less container space, reducing transportation costs, meeting requirement of environmental protection, are also offered.
To realize the above objective, the present invention provides a multiply built up buffer structure, which comprises at least two buffer members and a pair of end caps. The two buffer members are made of paper material, and each has an elongate strip configuration having a U-shaped cross-section forming a hollow chamber shaped to correspond to the configuration thereof. The hollow chamber extends between and completely through opposite ends of the buffer member. One of the buffer members is movably received in the hollow chamber of the other buffer member to form an extendible strip. The pair of end caps is also made of paper material, and each end cap has a U-shaped configuration forming therein a hollow chamber corresponding in shape to the configuration thereof. The hollow chamber of each end cap extends between and completely through opposite ends thereof. The hollow chamber of each end cap receives at least one reinforcement piece made of paper material therein. The pair of end caps is respectively and movably fit into opposite ends of the extendible strip in accordance with the hollow chambers of the respective buffer members.
As such, improved resistance against pressure, drop, and impact is provided between a package box and a product to be protected. Further, with the extendible structure, the buffer of the present invention is applicable to various sizes of products to be protected to provide excellent strength of pressure resistance and allows for high stacking of packaged products, reduction of costs and non-wasting of resources.
The present invention also provides a method for manufacturing a multiply built up buffer structure, comprising the following steps: providing base paper; slitting: in which the base paper is slit into small pieces of base paper of reduced widths; winding: in which the small pieces of base paper are rolled up in a helical fashion to form an elongate paper tube; cutting: in which the elongate paper tube is cut into a number of short tubes having lengths corresponding to a mold; pressing: in which the short paper tubes are pressed with the mold to form a plurality of shaped bodies; and assembling: in which the shaped bodies formed by pressing are first divided into at least two groups of shaped bodies of different lengths, the two shaped body groups comprising a number of first shaped bodies and a number of second shaped bodies respectively, and then at least two first shaped bodies that are of a great length being assembled together according to a desired dimension to form an extendible strip, and then two second shaped bodies that are of a small length being fit to opposite ends of the extendible strip.
The present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art by reading the following description of preferred embodiments thereof, as well as the best mode of a manufacturing method thereof, with reference to the drawings, in which:
The present invention provide a multiply built up buffer structure and a manufacturing method thereof for substituting the conventional Styrofoam-molded buffers or pulp-molding buffers to provide various effects of pressure resistance, drop resistance, and impact resistance between a package box and a product-to-be-protected.
Referring to
The buffer members 1 are made of paper material, such as corrugated boards, and are each of an elongate strip configuration having a U-shaped cross-section. Each buffer member 1 forms a hollow chamber 10 arranged in a U-shape to correspond to the U-shaped configuration of the buffer member 1. The hollow chamber 10 extends between and completely through opposite ends of the buffer member 1. One of the two buffer members 1 is movably received in the hollow chamber 10 of the other buffer member 1, whereby a telescope strip that is freely extendible in accordance with a dimension of the product-to-be-protected is formed. The telescopic strip is made up of at least two buffer members 1 telescopically fit into each other. In the embodiment illustrated, the telescopic strip is made up of two buffer members 1 and it is apparent that the telescopic strip can be alternatively made up of a number of buffer members 1 telescopically fit into each other (examples being shown in
The pair of end caps 2 are both made of paper material (such as corrugated boards) and each end cap 2 is of a U-shaped configuration and forms therein a U-shaped hollow chamber 20 corresponding to the U-shaped configuration thereof. The hollow chamber 20 extends between and completely through opposite ends of the end cap 2. The hollow chamber 20 of each end cap 2 receives at least one reinforcement piece 25 made of paper material (such as corrugated boards), which forms an additional layer of structure inside the hollow chamber 20 of the end cap 2 for enhancing resistance of the end cap 2 against pressure, drop, and impact. One of the end caps 2 is movably fit into one end of the telescopic strip in accordance with the hollow chamber 10 of the corresponding one of the buffer members 1, while the other end cap 2 is movably fit into an opposite end of the telescopic strip in accordance with the hollow chamber 10 of the other one of the buffer members 1.
Each buffer member 1 has two outer side walls 11, an outer bottom wall 12, and an inner bottom wall 13 each forming a plurality of pressure-resistant patterns 14 (see Part a of
As shown in Part a of
As shown in
Referring to
Besides the additional arrangement of the reinforcement piece 25 in the hollow chamber 20 of the end cap 2, each buffer member 1 can be selectively provided with at least one reinforcement piece (not shown) made of paper material (such as corrugated boards) in the hollow chamber 10 thereof. Both the reinforcement piece for the buffer member 1 and the reinforcement piece 25 of the end cap 2 can be formed as any desired structure made of paper material. In the embodiment illustrated, the reinforcement piece 25 is of a form that is one size smaller than the end cap 2. (The reinforcement piece for the buffer member 1 can be made in the same way.)
Further, as shown in
Referring to
Referring to
The stop block 3 can be made in any desired form, such as in the embodiment illustrated, including a pair of U-shaped pieces 31, 32, which are of slightly different sizes and are mated to each other to make a rectangular body. Preferably, each U-shaped piece 31, 32 is provided with pressure resistant patterns (not labeled).
Referring to
The features of the multiply built up buffer structure and the manufacturing method thereof are that structural design of unique U-shape and pressure-resistant patterns 14 and 24, together with a multiple-structured arrangement, provide improved resistance against pressure, drop, and impact between a package box and a product-to-be-protected so as to realize excellent strength of pressure resistance and applicability of high stacking of packaged products. The multiple-structured arrangement adopted in the present invention means the overlap between two mutually-fit buffer members 1 (see Part c of
Although the present invention has been described with reference to the preferred embodiment thereof, as well as the best mode for carrying out a manufacturing method thereof, it is apparent to those skilled in the art that a variety of modifications and changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention which is intended to be defined by the appended claims.
Claims
1. A buffer structure, comprising:
- at least two buffer members, the buffer members being made of paper material comprising base paper, each of said buffer members being of an elongate strip configuration having a U-shaped cross-section forming a hollow chamber shaped to correspond to the configuration thereof, the hollow chamber extending between and completely through opposite ends of the buffer member, one of the buffer members being movably received in the hollow chamber of the other buffer member to form an extendible strip; and
- a pair of end caps, the pair of end caps being made of paper material comprising base paper, each end cap being of a U-shaped configuration and forming therein a hollow chamber corresponding in shape to the configuration thereof, the hollow chamber extending between and completely through opposite ends of the end cap, the hollow chamber of each end cap receiving at least one reinforcement piece made of paper material therein, the pair of end caps being respectively and movably fit into opposite ends of the extendible strip in accordance with the hollow chambers of the respective buffer members;
- wherein said buffer structure and said pair of end caps are slidingly adjustable to conform to a length of a product accommodated therein.
2. The buffer structure as claimed in claim 1 further comprising at least one stop block made of paper material and wherein each buffer member forms a trough for configuring the U-shape, the stop block being set in the trough of at least one of the buffer members.
3. The buffer structure as claimed in claim 2, wherein the stop block comprises a pair of U-shaped pieces made of paper material, the U-shaped pieces being mated together to make a rectangular body.
4. The buffer structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein each buffer member has two outer side walls, an outer bottom wall, and an inner bottom wall each forming a plurality of pressure-resistant patterns extending in a direction parallel to length of the buffer member and wherein each end cap has two outer side walls and an outer bottom wall each forming a plurality of pressure-resistant patterns extending in a direction parallel to height of the end cap.
5. The buffer structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein each buffer member has a cross-section that comprises two vertical sections and a horizontal section connecting between the vertical sections to constitute the U-shape, the hollow chamber of the buffer member correspondingly comprising two vertical sections and a horizontal section, and wherein each end cap has a cross-section comprising two vertical sections and a horizontal section connecting between the vertical sections, the two vertical sections of the end cap being respectively fit into the two vertical sections of the hollow chamber of the corresponding buffer member.
6. The buffer structure as claimed in claim 1 further comprising a plurality of additional buffer members, the buffer members being movably fit into each other to from the extendible strip.
7. The buffer structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein the hollow chamber of each buffer member receives at least one reinforcement piece made of paper material therein.
8. (canceled)
9. The buffer structure as claimed in claim 1, wherein the base paper is corrugated board.
Type: Application
Filed: Apr 8, 2009
Publication Date: Oct 14, 2010
Inventor: Hsing-Chen Liu (Kaohsiung City)
Application Number: 12/385,428
International Classification: B65D 81/02 (20060101);