Classifications

• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
  • B65D—CONTAINERS FOR STORAGE OR TRANSPORT OF ARTICLES OR MATERIALS, e.g. BAGS, BARRELS, BOTTLES, BOXES, CANS, CARTONS, CRATES, DRUMS, JARS, TANKS, HOPPERS, FORWARDING CONTAINERS; ACCESSORIES, CLOSURES, OR FITTINGS THEREFOR; PACKAGING ELEMENTS; PACKAGES
  • B65D11/00—Containers having bodies formed by interconnecting or uniting two or more rigid, or substantially rigid, components made wholly or mainly of plastics material
  • B65D11/20—Details of walls made of plastics material
  • B65D11/22—Reinforcing for strengthening parts of members

Definitions

• the present invention relates generally to the field of food containers, and more specifically to flexible containers made of silicone.
• Tupper type containers made of hard plastics are known. These containers allow food to be stored, for example in the refrigerator, providing sufficient mechanical strength to contain the food, stacked on top of each other with lids or fit into each other without lids, allowing visualization of their contents by being translucent or transparent, etc.
• the thermal resistance of these materials is relatively low (below 100 5 C), which prevents their use to cook food inside.
• stainless steel containers are used for cooking, however these containers do not allow the demolding of the food inside once cooked (for example, biscuits) or visualize what is inside when they are opaque.
• Containers for cooking food for example silicone
• These containers are mainly used in the field of baking, as molds for preparing biscuits and the like.
• Silicone provides these containers with superior thermal resistance, however they lack the stiffness necessary for use as storage containers. Indeed, in order to provide these silicone containers with adequate rigidity, their thickness must be increased, which requires the use of a substantially greater amount of silicone, thus significantly increasing the price of the final product.
• the present invention relates in a first aspect to a silicone food container of the type formed by side walls and a lower base.
• the upper edges of the side walls define an upper opening through which food can be introduced and extracted from said container.
• the container of the invention comprises a three-dimensional reinforcement embedded inside the silicone that forms the side walls and the upper edges of said container, providing adequate mechanical strength to contain the food inside without deforming.
• the term "three-dimensional” should not be understood in its broadest sense, since in that case any object is three-dimensional, but refers to a reinforcement in which there is no significantly small dimension and less than the remaining two dimensions. It therefore refers to a reinforcement that extends along the three dimensions of the silicone container in which it is embedded, that is, width, depth and height.
• the term “two-dimensional” refers to a reinforcement, such as that disclosed by ES2267646, which extends along the width and depth of the upper edge of the container, but which is substantially lacking in height. comparison with the other two dimensions.
• the present invention discloses a method of manufacturing the container of the invention, which first comprises fixing a three-dimensional reinforcement by means of fixing elements inside a mold, said fixing being carried out only on the outside of the three-dimensional reinforcement; secondly, introducing silicone into the mold to mold the silicone container around said fixed three-dimensional reinforcement; and finally extract the container produced from the inside of the mold.
• said silicone molding around the fixed three-dimensional reinforcement is carried out by the injection molding or compression molding process.
• Figure 1 is a perspective view of a silicone food container with three-dimensional reinforcement according to an embodiment of the invention.
• Figure 2 is a perspective view of the three-dimensional reinforcement of Figure 1.
• Figure 3 is a top view of a mold for manufacturing the container shown in Figure 1.
• the present invention relates to a silicone food container, of the type formed by side walls and a lower base.
• the shape of the container is not limited in any way, and can be for example cylindrical (with a single side wall of revolution), square or rectangular (with four side walls) or in any other way desired. Therefore, it is understood that the use of the term "side walls” herein is not limited to any specific number of side walls, and may even include, unless otherwise specified, a single side wall of revolution for Define a cylindrical container.
• Figure 1 shows a container of this type according to the preferred embodiment of the invention, which has two long side walls (10) and two short side walls (12), facing two to two, and a lower base (14).
• the upper edges of the side walls (10, 12) define an upper opening through which food can be introduced and extracted from said container, as is commonly known in the art.
• the container according to the present invention further comprises, as seen in Figure 1, a three-dimensional reinforcement embedded inside the silicone forming said side walls (10, 12) and said upper edges of said container.
• the three-dimensional reinforcement along the side walls (10, 12) of the container does not completely cover said side walls (10, 12), but extends through the side walls (10, 12) of the container only in the form of rods (16) in the corners formed by the union of two side walls, thus reducing the amount of reinforcement material used and therefore the manufacturing cost of the final container.
• the three-dimensional reinforcement also has an upper frame (18) and a lower frame (20) of horizontal rods, embedded in the silicone of the upper edge of the side walls (10, 12) and in the base (14) of the container, respectively.
• a silicone container with three-dimensional reinforcement embedded according to the present invention provides the advantages of silicone, that is, it is transparent (thus allowing easy identification of the contents thereof), has high thermal resistance (resisting temperature peaks of up to minus 240 5 C) and non-stick capacity. Thanks to these advantages, the container of the present invention can be used both for storing food, for example in a refrigerator, and for cooking food inside (for example in an oven or microwave) as is currently done in steel containers, for example. In addition, the silicone of the container of the present invention has the additional advantage over steel containers of which, as mentioned above, it has a very desirable non-stick capacity in food cooking applications.
• the container of the invention has the advantages provided by its three-dimensional reinforcement, that is, a sufficient mechanical strength to maintain its shape with food inserted inside it, even allowing some containers to be stacked on top of each other (in case they have a lid ) and / or within each other when empty according to the preferred embodiment of the present invention shown in Figure 1.
• the side walls (10, 12) of the container have an inclination towards the interior thereof, being therefore their lower base (14) smaller than the upper opening. This allows multiple containers to be stored by stacking, fitting inside each other, so that it is reduced considerably the space occupied by them.
• the material from which the three-dimensional reinforcement of the container of the present invention is formed is not limited to any specific one, and it may be any that presents the mechanical strength characteristics required by the present invention.
• the three-dimensional reinforcement can be made of a suitable rigid material selected from the group consisting of a rigid plastic and a metal, and more preferably a metal.
• Said process may include an injection molding or compression molding process, more preferably a compression molding process.
• the manufacturing process of silicone containers with three-dimensional reinforcement embedded inside the silicone according to the present invention comprises the following steps:
• the main difficulty of the process according to the present invention is to perform the perfect fixation of the three-dimensional reinforcement inside the mold. Indeed, as those skilled in the art will appreciate, while a two-dimensional piece supported on a surface (as used in the prior art) only has three degrees of freedom (two movements in the two Cartesian axes that define the piece and a rotation in the axis perpendicular to the surface that defines said piece); a three-dimensional piece supported on a surface according to the present invention has six degrees of freedom (three movements in the three axes of the piece and three turns in said axes).
• the fixation must be carried out on the outside of the three-dimensional reinforcement so that no mark is left inside the final container produced, since for reasons of hygiene and food safety under conditions of use of the product, the inside of the container must be perfectly smooth.
• said three-dimensional reinforcement fixing is carried out by means of a plurality of upper fixing elements (22) (twelve in the case shown in Figure 3) to fix the upper frame (18) of the three-dimensional reinforcement and a plurality of lower fasteners (24) (twelve in the case shown in Figure 3) to fix the lower frame (20) of the three-dimensional reinforcement.
• These fasteners (22, 24) act together to prevent displacement of the three-dimensional reinforcement in the lateral directions during the molding process.
• a plurality of vertical fasteners (26) are used to prevent displacement of the three-dimensional reinforcement in the vertical direction during the molding process.
• the fasteners (22, 24, 26) used prevent the three-dimensional reinforcement from deforming or moving as a result of the closing force of the mold or the injection or compression pressure, and also preferably allow easy extraction of the container produced from the inside of the mold.
• the fixing of the three-dimensional reinforcement to the mold is therefore carried out by means of fixing elements (22, 24, 26) that serve as support for the three-dimensional reinforcement by limiting a turn and two displacements thereof at each support point.
• the fasteners (22, 24, 26) will provide several support points, so that the three-dimensional reinforcement is perfectly fixed.
• the contact points between the three-dimensional reinforcement and the fixing elements (22, 24, 26) have a reduced entire surface, so that there is little three-dimensional reinforcement not covered by the silicone of the container.
• the three-dimensional reinforcement is made of metal, the use of the container of the invention is still allowed in microwave applications.
• an injection molding process is carried out.
• the feeding of raw material (silicone) to the mold is not carried out until the mold has been completely closed, which has the advantage of facilitating the fixation of the three-dimensional reinforcement inside the mold.
• injection molding also has the disadvantages of requiring higher production machinery costs, a greater decrease in raw material, and the consequence of leaving an injection point inside the produced container.
• a compression molding process is carried out. According to this procedure, the raw material supplied inside the mold fills all the recesses of the figure produced therein before completely closing the mold. Therefore, in this case, the fixing of the three-dimensional reinforcement to the mold is carried out only on one side of said mold, the fixing elements not leaving any mark inside the produced container.
• a container without any type of lid has been shown to cover its upper opening, it will be understood that in additional embodiments of the invention the container may be provided with a lid suitable for sealing, preferably hermetically, said upper opening.
• said complementary cover for the upper opening may be integral with the container, for example being articulated to an upper edge of the container, or it may be independent of it.
• the three-dimensional reinforcement may extend over all of the side walls (10, 12) of the silicone container, or a part thereof according to any desired design (by example, according to vertical and horizontal rods), other than vertical rods (16) in the corners of the container as described hereinbefore.
• the container further comprises protruding flanges that project outwardly from said upper edges, thus facilitating their grip and transport, said protruding flanges even having handle-like structures.
• the container further comprises three-dimensional reinforcement embedded inside the silicone that forms said protruding flanges, providing them with adequate mechanical strength to grip the container by said protruding flanges.
• the container can also be introduced into an oven by holding it by means of introduction of said protruding flanges in the guides that commonly present the furnaces for this purpose, without the need to support it from the bottom.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Cookers (AREA)
• Containers Having Bodies Formed In One Piece (AREA)

Priority Applications (1)

Applications Claiming Priority (1)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=46147463

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (1)

Cited By (1)

Citations (4)

• 2012
  • 2012-03-22 WO PCT/ES2012/070187 patent/WO2013140000A1/fr not_active Ceased

Patent Citations (4)

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