Abstract:
This invention has as its subject a dispensing device for fluid-like products, composed of a container having a cylindrical drum, of which one end is provided with a movable base and the other end includes a neck which is capped by a distributor assembly including a pump with axial intake which is fitted onto a plunger sleeve. The lower face of the sleeve penetrates into the neck of the container during the fixing of the distributor assembly in the neck of the container, coming into position in sliding sealing engagement with a bearing surface of the neck.

Description:
This is a division, of application Ser. No. 08/060,781, filed May 12, 1993 U.S. Pat. No. 5,449,094. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Dispensers for more or less fluid products are known, formed of a casing having a cylindrical drum, of which one end, usually its lower end, is provided with a movable base normally retained by some kind of ring, and which is capped at the opposite end by a distributor pump with axial intake. Atmospheric pressure causes the base to ascend progressively as the product is removed by the pump. This both enables the paste or cream, or indeed liquid, to be sheltered from the air and allows them to be methodically expelled during use. 
     The components are, with advantage, moulded parts suitable for assembling together by simple fitting into one another. 
     Such a dispenser may be designed so that it is filled when upside down before the base is fitted, but it appears more advantageous to operate in the normal position, finishing with the mounting of the pump. The simplest approach for the packager is then to inject the product into the casing already provided with its base, and to then close the container in one operation by fitting a distributor sub-assembly, comprising a pump entirely assembled onto a leaktight sleeve for reduction in diameter. 
     This sleeve comprises a seating forming the bottom part of the distributor pump, or intended for receiving it, and traversed by the intake orifice, and a diaphragm which connects this seating to the receptacle, capping the latter to create inside it a funnel-shaped roof, the shape of which corresponds to the shape of the movable base, which eliminates losses of product. The roof may carry a well which will receive the pump body. 
     A disadvantage is, however, that it becomes difficult to eliminate the presence of a pocket of air capable of depriming the pump or at least of interfering with its proper functioning. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention proposes to eliminate the disadvantages of the prior constructions by giving to the sealing sleeve the form of a plunger, the front face of which will penetrate slideably into the neck during the fixing of the distributor assembly, becoming entirely situated below the upper edge of the corresponding bearing area of said neck. 
     Whatever the consistency of the product may then be, it thus becomes possible to fill the casing with a sufficient amount of the product for this product subsequently, during closure, to be forced back by means of the sealing sleeve so as to complete the expulsion of the air from the receptacle towards the body of the pump, making use of the intentional or spontaneous opening of the inlet valve to this pump and, possibly also, when the structure of the pump allows this, to discharge this air at least partly through the opening of its outlet valve. 
     It is advisable for this face to form a sufficiently sloping roof, inclined in principle at least 20°, to prevent bubbles of air sticking to its face. 
     Advantageously, the sealing action will come into play only at the end of the stroke, on either side of a dead space, to which to the sleeve will previously have expelled a portion of the air and of the product. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     These characteristics will be explained below by the description of advantageous examples, with reference to the drawings of which: 
     FIGS. 1A and 1B are longitudinal sections through an upper and a lower sub-assembly, respectively, of a dispenser in course of manufacture. 
     FIG. 2 is a longitudinal section of another embodiment of the dispenser; and 
     FIG. 3 is a longitudinal section of still another embodiment of the dispenser. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The dispenser shown in FIG. 1A and 1B comprises a casing 1 having a drum 1a, cylindrical but not necessarily circular, housing a piston 2 of the same contour, which serves as movable base; this piston is retained by a ring 3, which may range from a simple projection or circlip to a double-bottom allowing an entry for air. This sub-assembly B forms as a whole the container. 
     The movable base 2 preferably has two lips 2a and 2b, pointing in opposite directions. The lip 2a, which is set back from its upper face, serves essentially as a scraper during the upward movement under the effect of the suction created by the pump, preventing any non-uniformity of consistency and behavior of the product from lifting the lip 2b which, for its part, serving essentially for preventing any inlet of air through the base, fulfills the principal function and forms the sealing lip proper. 
     A sleeve 4 houses the distributor pump 5. Its body 5a is closed by its collar 6, which retains the piston 7, the piston-rod 7a of which forms a nozzle stem carrying a head 8 serving as pusher and provided with a suitable nozzle. This sub-assembly A forms the distributor. 
     In known manner, the pump has a ball inlet valve 9a and a sliding sleeve outlet valve 9b. At rest, the piston 7, which is biased upwards by its spring 10, also makes a seal against the collar 6 by the way of the sleeve 9b. 
     The diaphragm 4a of the sleeve 4 carries a central orifice bordered by a seating 4b, against which the lower end of the pump, where its intake 5b is located, fits in sealing manner during assembling, an outer bearing face 4c and a well in which the body 5a is housed, its flange 4d finally fixing the pump by means of its collar 6. 
     The conical lower face of the diaphragm 4a leads as a funnel towards its orifice; in the axis of which the pump is situated; during assembling of the two sub-assemblies, it will create the roof of the container; the profile of the movable base 2 corresponds to it, in such a way as to prevent losses of product at the end of use. If the pump is provided with a vent 5c, this vent will be neutralized by the sleeve 4, which will thus keep the reservoir of product P protected from the air. 
     The sleeve is adapted to be fitted onto the casing 1 to close it at its upper part, while a shoulder 4e may advantageously arrest it as a stop or teeth may hold it on a flange of the neck. 
     According to this invention, its outer lateral wall face slides here in the manner of a plunger, in a sealed manner at the end of the stroke along a corresponding internal bearing surface 1b over a distance sufficient to bring the intake below the upper edge of this bearing surface, but while it is in the upper part, passages 1c initially allow escape of the air. An excess of air and also of liquid product may be discharged to an intermediate dead space along the external bearing face of the sealing sleeve. 
     This form of construction enables all of the components to be produced by injection moulding and, with advantage, to be assembled by fitting them into or onto one another. 
     The product P, for the purpose of charging it into the apparatus, is placed in the casing 1 in a quantity corresponding accurately to the desired dose, rising to a more or less uniform level depending upon its viscosity, close to a mean level N. During the fitting on of the upper sub-assembly, the sleeve 4 will expel the air to the outside and then, forming a seal, will expel to the pump the portion of air remaining trapped, lifting the inlet valve 9a; its lower face then reaching the product, it will expel to the intake 5b the portion initially remaining outside in relation to the final position of the funnel cone, approximately equal in volume to the internal volume of the pump, thus compelling the pump to be at least partly filled with product to facilitate its priming. It therefore compresses the air there and will even partly expel it to the outside against the resistance of the sleeve 9b if care has been taken to press hard on the piston, which may already be equipped with its head 8, in order to release the escape. 
     FIG. 2 shows with the same references a form of embodiment in which the body of an analogous pump 5 is only fitted into its collar 6 which, on the other hand, itself serves as a reduction ring for fixing the distributor sub-assembly onto the neck of the container 1, whereas the sealing sleeve 4 is simply pushed on as a friction fit onto the lower part of the body of the pump 5. 
     This solution is more advantageous in several respects. In the first place, the construction of the components is simpler. It will also be seen that there exists along the body of the pump, masked by the collar, a dead space M having a volume of the order of five times the internal volume of the pump, and that the passage 1c is formed by an inner bore of increased diameter, which a lip 6a of this collar will close in sealed manner on completion of the assembling operation. 
     In fact, the process of filling described in relation to the version shown in FIG. 1 assumes that the relative tolerance to the quantity of product introduced into the casing 1 shall be less than the internal volume of the pump, or one dose, since it is not desirable that, from the start of the filled condition, this product shall penetrate into the head 8 and even overflow out of the distribution nozzle; now such a condition is one of the most difficult to satisfy in large-scale production, carried out at a high rate. If a minimal margin of error of the order of three doses is assumed, the level N will vary between a minimum level L close to the opening-out of the wall face 1b, but still capable of supplying good priming to the pump, and a maximum level H situated higher up. 
     During filling the product will thus, in its turn, by the action of the sections offered and the respective counter-pressures, first invade a notable part of the dead space M. If the level L is itself higher than the top edge of the wall face 1b, the useful product capacity will be fixed accurately by coming into sealing of the sleeve 4, the excess being lost but remaining enclosed within the cartridge. 
     It will be noted also that it is then possible, as shown in the figure, to invert the cone defined by the front face of the sleeve without risk of leaving an air bubble at its upper part, which reduces slightly the quantity of collected air towards the pump. 
     Finally, it is not forbidden, at the cost of a certain loss of accuracy on the quantity of occluded air and therefore on the useful capacity, to dispense with the presence of any internal offset or diameter change creating a passage above the sealing area 1b, and to give only to the skirt which supports the outer bearing face 4c of the sleeve 4 adequate flexibility so that, while leaktight principally against external excess pressures, it allows during filling the escape of air, then of excess product, into the dead space under the effect of their temporary but appreciable compression. 
     To reduce the overall height while continuing to use a standard pump with axial nozzle and intake, it will sometimes be possible to raise both the roof formed by the diaphragm of the sealing plunger sleeve and the effective level of the intake, by creating a siphon by means of an inverted bell fitting over the lower end of the pump body. Such a form of construction is shown in FIG. 3. 
     The casing 1 is provided with a drum having a cylindrical wall 1a, with a neck having a narrowed internal bearing area 1b and a movable base 2, fitted from the bottom. 
     The collar 6, which closes the pump 5, is folded back into a keeper ring 6b before being stepped out as a skirt 6c, which serves for fixing the pump onto the neck 1b, the internal lip 6a reinforcing the seal against the neck; it again thus serves as a reduction ring and fixing ring. 
     The sleeve 4 connects internally, in sealed manner with regard to external positive pressures, along its two bearing areas 4b and 4c, the body of the pump 5 to the neck 1b, in the present case by means of the lip 6a, against which it bears. Thus forming the roof of the container, it again constitutes a plunger ring adapted for expelling air from the container by simple pushing-in at the end of filling; but being sleeved at the top onto the body of the pump 5, its front face is on this occasion clearly above the lower end and the intake 5b of this pump. 
     The pump 5, in its narrowest part containing the return spring for its internal piston, is capped by a bell 11, which brings up to the apex of the roof the effective level where, through apertures 11a, the intake of product to the pump takes place through a siphon. 
     In variants, this bell could equally well form part of the pump body as serve itself for fixing the pump to the container, but it is preferable to use separate components, in order not to need to multiply the number of moulds of complex shape according to the intended uses. This also makes it possible, conversely, depending upon the current example, to form in one piece the scavenging plunger 4 and its siphon bell 11, instead of fixing this bell onto the pump by relief elements which even become superfluous for its centering; all the components are still suitable for production by injection moulding, the sleeve and bell forming a part of telescopic shape, the apertures being placed at their junction. 
     In order to avoid any loss of material, the movable base 2 should, of course, have a profile geometrically similar to that of the upper part of the container. It is very easy to do this by placing a basin 2c at the center of the band which carries the air sealing lip 2b and the scraper lip 2a.