The invention relates to a spout on filling apparatus for packing liquids, having a spout plate which has a plurality of bores disposed closely side by side for the passage of the liquid into a container or the like disposed underneath the spout.
The spouts on packing apparatus of the kind herein contemplated are commonly operated cyclically, so that the material being packed, such as milk or fruit juice, can be poured intermittently into the containers moved successively and cyclically under the spout. Operation at maximum speed in the sense of short cycling times requires that the stream emerging from the spout be made as large as possible in relation to the container cross section, which in turn requires that the filling stream be given a precise shape with a smooth outside surface. The intermittent manner of operation furthermore necessitates measures for preventing the liquid from dripping between fill cycles, in order to prevent contamination of the apparatus and trouble in closing the containers such as might be caused by wetting them with the liquid in the area of the closure. For the achievement of this purpose in the spouts it is known to dispose strainer or filter disks in the spouts, or else spout plates having bores disposed closely adjacent one another. The invention relates to this last-described type of spouts. This type has the advantage over the use of strainer and filter disks, which cannot be used with pulpy liquids, of a wider range of applications. However, the known spouts of this kind are not free from disadvantages, either. For example, the individual bores in the spout plate result in a great number of individual jets having a relatively large total surface area, resulting in severe frothing. The froth on the surface of the material in the filled container is disadvantageous for the reason that it can again cause wetting in the container areas which have to be heated afterward for closing by heat sealing or the like. The larger surface area of the many individual jets, however, also causes fine air bubbles to be entrained in the liquid, which initially do not immediately manifest themselves in froth, but do raise the liquid level and thus also cause difficulty in closing.
It is already known to dispose the bores in the spout plate at a low angle to the axis of the spout, or to set the container at an angle underneath the spout, so that the liquid jets emerging from the bores impinge upon the inside wall of the container at an angle, and the liquid flows down this wall in the form of a film (cf. European patent application No. 00 13132). In this manner a certain improvement can be achieved as regards foaming and the entrainment of air into the liquid, but it does not go all the way, for the problem still persists of the dripping of the liquid between the individual container filling cycles.