Hot fill mold shell assembly with reduced heat transfer
View Patent ↗A hot fill hot fill mold assembly has two mold half shells and two mold half carriers for supporting the mold half shells. The shells each have an inner wall that defines the shape of at least a portion of the container to be formed. Each shell has outer wall surface portions and a plurality of spaced apart slotted grooves extending between the outer wall surface portions that define open air spaces recessed from the outer wall portions. The mold half carriers have a carrier inner wall that overlays in contacting and thermal conducting relation the outer wall surface portions of a corresponding one of the mold half shells and overlays the spaced apart slotted grooves to create thermal buffering open air pockets between the mold half shells and the mold half carriers so as to reduce the thermal conduction away from the mold face and improve hot fill container formation.
1. A hot fill mold assembly for forming a container, the hot fill mold assembly comprising:
two mold half shells each comprising an outer wall and an inner wall that defines the shape of at least a portion of the container to be formed, each of the mold half shells having a plurality of channels extending therethrough adapted for receiving a liquid to heat the mold half shells;
two mold half carriers each having a carrier inner wall overlaying in contacting thermal conducting relation a corresponding outer wall of the mold half shells for supporting the mold half shells in the hot fill mold assembly; and,
at least one of the outer wall of each of the mold half shells and the inner wall of each of the mold half carriers having a pattern of grooves formed therein to reduce contact surface area between the outer wall and inner wall whereby the pattern of grooves buffer thermal conduction between the inner wall and the outer wall.
2. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 1 wherein the pattern of grooves comprises a series of spaced apart elongated grooves.
3. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 2 wherein the pattern of spaced apart elongated grooves extend axially around the mold assembly and are longitudinally spaced along the mold assembly.
4. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 1 wherein the pattern of grooves comprises a pattern of intersecting grooves.
5. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 1 wherein each of the mold half shells comprises a plurality of exhaust passageways extending from the inner wall of the mold half shells into at least one of the grooves whereby air is exhausted through the exhaust passageways, the at least one groove, and between the outer wall of the mold half shell and inner wall of the mold half carrier to ambient.
6. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 1 wherein the two mold half shells comprise modular mold shells each comprising at least an upper body mold section and a lower body mold section.
7. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 1 wherein the pattern of grooves are filled with an thermally insulating material.
8. A hot fill mold assembly for forming a container, the hot fill mold assembly comprising:
two mold half shells each comprising an inner wall that defines the shape of at least a portion of the container to be formed, each mold half shell having outer wall surface portions and a plurality of spaced apart slotted grooves extending between the outer wall surface portions that are recessed from the outer wall portions; and,
two mold half carriers for supporting the two mold half shells, each mold half carrier having a carrier inner wall overlaying in contacting and thermal conducting relation the outer wall surface portions of a corresponding one of the mold half shells and overlaying the spaced apart slotted grooves to create thermal buffering pockets between the mold half shell and the mold half carrier.
9. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 8 wherein the plurality of grooves extend in half rings about the outer wall.
10. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 8 wherein the mold half shells are modular mold half shells each comprising:
an upper body mold section having upper body inner walls defining an upper body cavity whose shape corresponds to the upper body of the container to be formed and at least one lower body mold section releasably secured with the upper body mold section.
11. The hot fill mold assembly of claim 8 wherein the spaced apart slotted grooves are filled with a thermally insulation material.