Patent ID: 9623988
Date: 2017-04-18
CPC Classifications: B65B

Claim:
1. A poucher for producing pouches filled with a flowable material, said pouches having a predetermined pouch length, comprising: a source of web; a garniture operative to form the web into a hollow endless tube, with overlapping edge portions of the web establishing a longitudinal seam; a cutter operative to ultimately produce multiple individual open-ended tubes of a length corresponding to said pouch length and having opposite ends; a series of transfer drums operative to establish and move a procession of said multiple individual open-ended tubes along a path, said tubes of said procession being in a mutually spaced, side-by-side relation along said path; a transfer section operative to transfer an output of said cutter onto a receiving portion of said series of transfer drums; a first closure mechanism at a first location along said path operative to crimp-close one end of each multiple individual open-ended tube to establish a procession of open-ended pouch structures; a filling section at a second location along said path for depositing a predetermined amount of the flowable material in each of said open-ended pouch structures to establish a procession of open-ended, filled pouch structures; a second closure mechanism at a third location along said path operative to crimp-close the other end of each of said open-ended, filled pouch structures to establish a procession of completed pouches; and a sensor and a controller operative to maintain consistent operation of said filling section; wherein said transfer section and said series of transfer drums maintain a consistent location of said longitudinal seam between opposite sides of the completed pouches; wherein the cutter is operative to initially cut the hollow endless tube into multi-length tubular elements, said series of transfer drums comprising cutting, grading and alignment drum sections at a location along said series of transfer drums to cut said multi-length tubular elements into individual pouch lengths and arrange them into said procession of individual tubes.