Drawing Apparatus

This invention relates to a method of drawing a metal foil or sheet, or plastic film or sheet, or their laminate into formed articles, and equipment for practicing same and formed articles manufactured by the method. The present invention is directed more particularly to a method of drawing a metal foil or sheet, or a plastic film or sheet, or their laminate which is of the order of 7 to 200 .mu.m in thickness and has a relatively low rigidity, into a formed article which has no wrinkles, and equipment for practicing same and formed articles manufactured by the method.

Containers extremely thin in wall thickness which are made of a metal foil or sheet such as aluminum foil or tin plate, or a plastic film or sheet, or their laminates, are extensively employed for packaging goods or medicines and so on. However, such containers have scarcely been formed by drawing. This is due to the following reasons: These foil, sheet, film and laminate, namely, blanks are less in rigidity. Accordingly, if the blanks are drawn by the ordinary drawing method, wrinkles are significantly created on the formed article or container or shell at the radiused corner of the die and are distributed substantially entirely over the flange and the sidewall portion of the shell. This will undoubtedly defile the appearance of the containers. In addition, it is impossible to hermetically seal the containers with their flange portions by lids so as to prevent leakage of the contents and deterioration of the contents due to entry of air and moisture.

In order to overcome this difficulty, a method is extensively employed in which, after heat-softened, a plastic film or sheet, or a composite film or sheet consisting of plastic materials is subjected to pressurized air forming or vacuum forming to produce a formed article. This method is a so-called bulging method which can be applied only to plastic film or sheets which extend 100% to 200% or more at heat-softened state. Accordingly, this method is disadvantageous in that a step of heating is required, and unlike drawing, it is impossible to subject the blank to cold forming which is carried out at room temperature or a temperature around the room temperature. It goes without saying that this method cannot be applicable to aluminum foil or tin foil.

In the case where containers are made of plastic only, it has been found that it is rather difficult to attain complete barrier for oxygen or moisture, that is, such containers are not suitable in the field of packaging foods to be preserved for a long time at room temperature where sophisticated technique is required. In order to eliminate this drawback, a laminate of aluminum foil, or the like, and plastic films or sheets has been provided recently. In this case, in view of material saving and cost reduction, the aluminum foil should be as thin as possible, but to the extent that the contents in the container is prevented from inroading of oxygen and moisture. Accordingly, laminates made of a thin aluminum foil 7 to 30 .mu.m in thickness and polyester, polyethylene, polypropylene, nylon or polycarbonate films etc. several to several tens of .mu.m in thickness have been provided to package foods or the like. However, since the laminate of this type contains aluminum foil, the elongation thereof is no more than several to 50%, and therefore manufacturing a formed article from the laminate in accordance with the above-described pressurized air or vacuum forming is practically impossible. Accordingly, such laminates are used mainly for manufacturing pouches.

In a drawing method, unlike a bulging method, the thickness of a blank sheet is scarcely changed during drawing, and the elongation of the blank needs not to be so high. Accordingly, in the drawing method, it is possible to obtain a formed article such as a cup by subjecting the aforementioned very thin metal foil or sheet, or a plastic film or sheet or laminates thereof to cold-drawing. However, in this conventional drawing, wrinkles are remarkably created on the formed article at the radiused corner of the die, and therefore heretofore it is impossible to manufacture formed articles which can be commercialized.

In other words, in the conventional drawing, when a blank is drawn into the die by the punch, the blank has a portion which is not restrained on the radiused corner of the die. However, in the case where the blank is sufficiently thicker than 200 .mu.m and especially it is a metal sheet, the rigidity of the blank is considerably high, so that wrinkles are scarcely created on the formed article at the radiused corner. On the contrary, the rigidity of a plastic laminate thinner than 200 .mu.m including a thin aluminum foil 7 to 30 .mu.m is relatively low, and therefore if this plastic laminate is drawn in accordance with the conventional method, wrinkles will be necessarily created.

In view of the foregoing, a primary object of this invention is to provide a drawing method in which creation of wrinkles on a formed article at the radiused corner of the die is prevented.

A further object of the invention is to provide a drawing equipment in which a thin sheet having a relatively low rigidity can be drawn without creating wrinkles on a formed article at the radiused corner of the die.

A still further object of the invention is to provide a formed article fine in appearance without wrinkles which is obtained by drawing a metal foil or sheet, or a plastic film or sheet, or their laminate about 7 to 200 .mu.m in thickness.

A specific object of the invention is to provide a formed article fine in appearance without wrinkles which is obtained by drawing a laminate consisting of a metal foil of about 7 to 30 .mu.m and plastic films of several to about one hundred of .mu.m in thickness.

In this invention, a force for resisting creation of wrinkles on a blank low in rigidity being drawn, that is, hydrostatic force is applied to the blank at the radiused corner of the die substantially throughout the drawing operation, thereby to provide a formed article having no wrinkles.

The novel features which are considered characteristic of this invention are set forth in the appended claims. This invention itself, however, as well as other objects and advantages thereof will be best understood by reference to the following detailed description of an illustrative embodiment, when read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which like parts are designated by like reference numerals.

In the accompanying drawings:

FIG. 1 is a sectional view for a description of a conventional drawing method;

FIG. 2 is a sectional view showing a punch and die employed in this invention;

FIG. 3 is an enlarged fragmentary section of FIG. 2.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram for a description of a conventional drawing method. Referring to FIG. 1, a punch 2 is fixedly secured to a bolster 1, and a blank holder 3 is connected to the bolster 1 through a cushioning means 4 which utilizes a spring, pneumatic pressure or liquid pressure. A die 5 is affixed to a ram 6. In FIG. 1, the bolster and the ram are arranged above and below, respectively; however, the arrangement of them may be reversed. This can be applied to FIGS. 2 and 3. A blank to be drawn, or a thin sheet 7 (hereinafter referred to as "a workpiece 7" when applicable) is clamped between the blank holder 3 and the die 5 under a suitable pressure, and is then drawn as the punch enters the die. In this drawing operation, no force is exerted on a portion of the sheet 7, which lies on the radiused corner 8 of the die 5, by the blank holder 3, and therefore the portion is in a so-called free state until the punch 2 is brought into contact therewith. Consequently, wrinkles will be produced on the portion by circumferential compressive force, if the sheet is a thin one having a low bending rigidity.

In this invention, the above-described difficulty is eliminated by using a drawing machine described below, and particularly a punch described below in the drawing machine. That is, the drawing machine comprises a punch and a die having a cavity corresponding to the punch, so that a thin sheet is drawn into the cavity of the die by the punch thereby to form a formed article.

FIG. 2 shows a further example of the drawing machine according to the method of this invention. FIG. 3 is an enlarged view showing the die shoulder and elements in the vicinity thereof in the drawing machine.

This drawing machine comprises a punch, a die having a cavity corresponding to the punch, and a blank holder surrounding the punch, so that a thin sheet, or a work-piece, having a relatively low rigidity is drawn into the die cavity while being clamped between the die and the blank holder. In this machine, a sealing member 13 such as an "O" ring is placed between the punch and the blank holder to form a space or an annular groove defined by the punch, the sealing member and the blank holder. The blank holder is provided with a port communicated with the space so that pressurized fluid is supplied into the space. In this case, the upper surface of the portion of the thin sheet which is brought into contact with the die radiused corner 8 is depressed by the hydrostatic pressure of the fluid supplied into the space substantially throughout the drawing process to prevent creation of wrinkles on the workpiece which otherwise may be formed in its portion at the die radiused corner.

More specifically, referring to FIGS. 2 and 3, the fluid is supplied through the port 14 formed in the blank holder 3" into the space (or annular groove) 15 under pressure. As was described above, the port 14 is communicated with the annular groove 15 surrounding the punch, and the pressurized fluid applied through the port 14 to the groove 15 serves to pressurize the thin sheet 7 at the die radiused corner thereby to prevent creation of wrinkles thereon. Reference 13 is the aforementioned sealing member or "O" ring which is provided to prevent the leakage of the fluid through the gap between the blank holder 3" and the outer wall of the punch 2. When the punch 2 reaches its bottom dead point, a valve (not shown) provided in the port 14 is automatically closed. In this embodiment, as the space 15 is considerably small, the amount of fluid to be used can be very little.

The invention has been described with the particular embodiments; however, it should be noted that the invention is not limited thereto or thereby. A blank, such as a metal foil or thin sheet, to be employed according to the present invention may be iron, steel, copper and nickel sheets or tin plate, or sheets made of alloys of these materials, or such sheets coated with lacquers or subjected to surface treatment. A blank, such as a plastic film or sheet, to be employed in this invention may be polypropylene, nylon and polycarbonate sheets or their laminates. Polyester or polycarbonate sheets can be solely drawn because they can be subjected to cold forming.

The method and equipment according to the invention is most applicable to a film laminate less than about 200 .mu.m which consists of an aluminum foil about 7-30 .mu.m in thickness and plastic films covering the two surfaces of the aluminum foil.

If the surface of the laminate which is brought into contact with the punch during the drawing operation, that is, the layer of the laminate which is the inner surface of the formed article is of heat-sealable resin, a sealed container light in weight can be obtained with its lid heat sealed. This container can be subjected to retort sterilization, and, therefore, it is suitable as a container for foods, beverages and the like which can be preserved at room temperature. The heat-sealable resin may be polyolefins such as polyethylene and polypropylene, or nylon 11 or nylon 12 or polyester ether resin or their copolymers and blends, for instance.

The plastic film of the laminate which is brought into contact with the die serves to protect the intermediate layer or the aluminum foil from corrosion, to improve lubrication in drawing, and to maintain the configuration of a formed article.

Plastics preferable for this purpose are oriented or non-oriented polyethylene terephthalate, polyimid resin, polypropylene, polycarbonate, and their copolymers and blends, and furthermore other cold-formable synthetic resins.

The term "foil" or "film" as used herein is, in general, intended to mean a foil or film thinner than 100 .mu.m, and the term "sheet" means a sheet thicker than 100 .mu.m. The present invention is most suitable for drawing a thin work-piece having relatively low rigidity whose thickness is less than about 200 .mu.m. The present invention is sufficiently applicable to sheets ranged from 20 .mu.m to about 200 .mu.m in thickness.

The embodiments of the invention have been described with reference to normal drawing. However, it should be noted that the invention can be applied to deep-drawing as well as drawing-bulging in which the bottom of a formed article is subjected to bulging, to the extent that the article is not broken.

The method and equipment according to the invention can draw a thin sheet into various configurations of the sidewall section such as circle, ellipse, corner-rounded triangle, rectangle, hexagon, and corner-rounded polygon.

The forming temperature is not always limited to room temperature; that is, it may be higher than room temperature where required, if it does not damage a work-piece and the elastic wall such as rubber employed for the punch.

As is apparent from the above description, according to the invention work-pieces such as metal foils or sheets or plastic films or sheets or their laminates which are relatively low in rigidity can be drawn into beautiful shells such as containers without wrinkles, although production of such articles has been impossible by the conventional method. Since the container produced according to the invention has no wrinkles, the container can be hermetically sealed with its flange and the lid. Accordingly, the containers are most suitable for cooked foods or medicines and so forth which should preserved for a long time at room temperature and should be prevented from inroading of oxygen and moisture.