U.S. patent application number 11/037074 was filed with the patent office on 2005-09-01 for glass substrate transport box containing disposable support boards.
Invention is credited to Huang, Yen-Ling.
Application Number | 20050189253 11/037074 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 34588649 |
Filed Date | 2005-09-01 |
United States Patent
Application |
20050189253 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Huang, Yen-Ling |
September 1, 2005 |
Glass substrate transport box containing disposable support
boards
Abstract
A transport box for glass substrates includes an upright box
body having a rectangular inner space, an upper opening defined by
four upright walls, and a bottom face. The transport box further
includes a dust-free bag and two support boards, wherein each of
the two support boards has a plurality of parallel slots for
supporting edges of the glass substrates; the dust-free bag being
placed inside of the box body, an opening of the dust-free bag
facing the upper opening of the box body, and an edge of the
opening of the dust-free bag being disposed over an upper edge of
the four upright walls; and the two support boards are placed in
parallel with their respective slots facing each other in the
dust-free bag, and fastened to the box body; therefore, the
plurality of slots on the two support boards form a plurality of
slot pairs for holding two edges of a plurality of glass substrates
in parallel, thereby the edge of the opening of the dust-free bag
can be folded to seal the plurality of glass substrates inside the
dust-free bag.
Inventors: |
Huang, Yen-Ling; (Kaohsiung,
TW) |
Correspondence
Address: |
BACON & THOMAS, PLLC
625 SLATERS LANE
FOURTH FLOOR
ALEXANDRIA
VA
22314
|
Family ID: |
34588649 |
Appl. No.: |
11/037074 |
Filed: |
January 19, 2005 |
Current U.S.
Class: |
206/454 ;
206/449 |
Current CPC
Class: |
B65D 25/10 20130101;
B65D 85/48 20130101; B65D 77/02 20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
206/454 ;
206/449 |
International
Class: |
B65D 085/48 |
Foreign Application Data
Date |
Code |
Application Number |
Feb 26, 2004 |
TW |
93105016 |
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. A transport box for glass substrates comprising an upright box
body having a rectangular inner space, an upper opening defined by
four upright walls, and a bottom face; the transport box being
characterized in that: the transport box further comprises a
dust-free bag and two support boards, wherein each of the two
support boards has a plurality of parallel slots for supporting
edges of the glass substrates; the dust-free bag being placed
inside of the box body, an opening of the dust-free bag facing the
upper opening of the box body, and an edge of the opening of the
dust-free bag being disposed over an upper edge of the four upright
walls; and the two support boards are placed in parallel with their
respective slots facing each other in the dust-free bag, and
fastened to the box body with the dust-free bag between the box
body and the two support boards, so that the plurality of slots on
the two support boards form a plurality of slot pairs for holding
two edges of a plurality of glass substrates in parallel, thereby
the edge of the opening of the dust-free bag can be folded to seal
the plurality of glass substrates inside the dust-free bag.
2. The transport box as claimed in claim 1, wherein two facing
upright walls of the box body have two pairs of connecting slots,
and the two support boards are inserted respectively into the two
pairs of connecting slots with the dust-free bag between the box
body and the two support boards, and the two support boards contact
respectively the other two facing upright walls of the four upright
walls.
3. The transport box as claimed in claim 1 further comprising a
third support board identical to the two support boards, wherein
the third support board is placed in the dust-free bag and onto the
bottom face of the box body with the dust-free bag between the
bottom face and the third support board, and a plurality of
parallel slots on the third support board face the opening of the
dust-free bag and are used for holding in parallel bottom edges of
the plurality of glass substrates.
4. The transport box as claimed in claim 1, wherein the two support
boards are rectangular or chamfered rectangular.
5. The transport box as claimed in claim 3, wherein the third
support board is rectangular or chamfered rectangular.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
[0001] 1. Field of the Invention
[0002] The present invention relates to a transport box for highly
clean glass substrates and more particularly, to a transport box
for glass substrates that has disposable support boards and a
dust-free bag.
[0003] 2. Description of the Related Art
[0004] Glass substrates are very important materials for the
manufacturing of LCDs, color filters, and like products. During the
manufacturing of LCDs, the quality of the glass substrates has a
serious affects on the yield. Consequently, the manufacturer of the
glass substrates must not only make high quality glass substrates,
but must also protect the glass substrates during transportation
and prevent the glass substrates form being contaminated.
Therefore, the transport box must be shockproof, dustproof,
waterproof, have low thermal conductivity, low compression
deformation, high impact strength, a high dimension stability, low
moisture absorption rate, etc.
[0005] U.S. Pat. No. 5,588,531 or the parallel Japanese publication
No. 7-132986 discloses a transport box for glass substrates. The
transport box is composed of a body and a cover, and has the
following characteristics: the body and the cover are made of a
polyolefin foam having a foaming ratio of 3.about.30 times and a
thickness of 15.about.100 mm. A pair of upright facing walls of the
body have a plurality of slots for holding the glass substrates.
This glass substrate transport box is expensive to manufacture, and
it also imposes a high cost with reuse cleaning. The cleaning
process includes water washing and manual organic solvent cleaning
in a clean room. Due to the reuse cleaning process, the
manufacturer of the glass substrates must keep in stock a large
number of transport boxes, which leads to higher transportation
costs. Furthermore, with increasing reuse of the transport box, the
surface of the transport box may begin to generate dust and
contaminate the glass substrates, which may also reduce the
lifetime of the transport box.
[0006] Therefore, it is desirable to provide a transport box for
glass substrates to mitigate and/or obviate the aforementioned
problems.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
[0007] A main objective of the present invention is to provide a
transport box for highly clean glass substrates to ensure the
integrity of the quality of the glass substrates during
transportation.
[0008] In order to accomplish the objective of the present
invention, a transport box for glass substrates constructed
according to the present invention comprises an upright box body
having a rectangular inner space, an upper opening defined by four
upright walls, and a bottom face; the transport box being
characterized in that: the transport box further comprises a
dust-free bag and two support boards, wherein each of the two
support boards has a plurality of parallel slots for supporting
edges of the glass substrates; the dust-free bag being placed
inside of the box body, an opening of the dust-free bag facing the
upper opening of the box body, and an edge of the opening of the
dust-free bag being disposed over an upper edge of the four upright
walls; and the two support boards are placed in parallel with their
respective slots facing each other in the dust-free bag, and
fastened to the box body with the dust-free bag between the box
body and the two support boards, so that the plurality of slots on
the two support boards form a plurality of slot pairs for holding
two edges of a plurality of glass substrates in parallel, thereby
the edge of the opening of the dust-free bag can be folded to seal
the plurality of glass substrates inside the dust-free bag.
[0009] Preferably, two facing upright walls of the box body have
two pairs of connecting slots, and the two support boards are
inserted respectively into the two pairs of connecting slots with
the dust-free bag between the box body and the two support boards,
and the two support boards contact respectively the other two
facing upright walls of the four upright walls.
[0010] Preferably, the transport box of the present invention
further comprises a third support board identical to the two
support boards, wherein the third support board is placed in the
dust-free bag and onto the bottom face of the box body with the
dust-free bag between the bottom face and the third support board,
and a plurality of parallel slots on the third support board face
the opening of the dust-free bag and are used for holding in
parallel bottom edges of the plurality of glass substrates.
[0011] Preferably, the two support boards are rectangular or
chamfered rectangular.
[0012] Preferably, the third support board is rectangular or
chamfered rectangular.
[0013] The transport box for glass substrates in the present
invention not only ensures the integrity of the glass substrates
during transportation, but also provides a simplified structure for
the box body of the transport box to reduce costs of the molds;
additionally, the support boards are relatively easy to
manufacture. Since the manufacturing costs of the support boards
and a dust-free bag are relatively lower, and as they are easy to
produce, they can be recycled as disposable material, thereby
avoiding the need for any expensive and complicated organic solvent
cleaning process in the clean room. Therefore, the present
invention can avoid operation cost and capital cost for the
cleaning process for the prior art glass substrate transport box.
Further, the present invention can improve usage arrangements of
the glass substrate transport box due to the above-mentioned
cleaning process in clean room being omitted.
[0014] Other objects, advantages, and novel features of the
invention will become more apparent from the following detailed
description when taken in conjunction with the accompanying
drawings.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING
[0015] FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a transport box for glass
substrates according to a first embodiment of the present
invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
[0016] A transport box for glass substrates in the present
invention can be a transport box for glass substrates for LCDs. The
transport box comprises a box body, a dust-free bag placed inside
the box body, and two support boards inserted into slots of the box
body to fix the dust-free bag. After the glass substrates are
placed in the transport box, the dust-free bag is sealed and a
cover is disposed over the box body to finish a packing process.
The box body, the support boards and the cover are made of
polyolefin foam with a low dust content, such as polypropene, and a
suitable manufacturing method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No.
5,588,531. The dust-free bag of the present invention is a packing
bag used for carrying optical devices, is made from a dust-free
plastic material (mainly polyethylene resin), and is commercially
available from the market.
[0017] After removing the glass substrates at the transportation
destination, the box body can be returned to the manufacturer of
the glass substrates and cleaned, and a new dust-free bag and new
support boards can then again be placed in the box body. Replacing
the dust-free bag and the support boards requires only about 10 to
15 seconds. Since the dust-free bag and the support boards can be
replaced each time, no dust problem is created by repeatedly
cleaning of the transport box.
[0018] Please refer to FIGURE 1. FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of
a transport box for glass substrates according to a first
embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the
transport box comprises a rectangular box body 10 and a cover 20.
The cover 20 is used to cover an upper opening 11 of the box body
to form a rectangular closed space for holding a plurality of
parallel glass substrates. The transport box further comprises a
dust-free bag 30 and three support boards 40. Each support board of
the three support boards 40 has a plurality of slots 41 for
supporting edges of the parallel glass substrates. The dust-free
bag 30 is placed in the box body 10; an opening 31 of the dust-free
bag and the opening 11 of the box body face up, and an edge 32 of
the opening of the dust-free bag is disposed over an upper edge of
four upright walls 12 of the box body.
[0019] Two of the three support boards 40 are placed in parallel
with their slots 41 (the right hand side slots are not shown),
facing each other in the dust-free bag 30 and fastened to two pairs
of connecting slots 15 at two ends of the box body 10 with the
dust-free bag 30 between the box body and the two support boards.
Therefore, the plurality of slots 41 on two support boards 40 form
a plurality of slot pairs for holding in parallel two edges of a
plurality of glass substrates (not shown).
[0020] The remaining one of the three support boards 40 is
horizontally placed in the dust-free bag 30 with its slots 41
facing up and is disposed onto an inner bottom face 13 of the box
body 10 with the dust-free bag 30 between the bottom face of the
box body and the support board. Furthermore, two longer sides of
the horizontal support board 40 contact a bottom portion of the two
upright walls 12 of the box body 10 with the dust-free bag 30
between the box body and the support board the dust-free bag 30,
and two shorter sides of the horizontal support board 40 are
limited by two pairs of upright strips 14 in the box body 10.
[0021] The three support boards 40 have identical sizes and shapes,
and their slots 41 are symmetrical with each other through an
imaginary vertical surface that evenly divides the box body 10, so
that a left edge, right edge and bottom edge of a glass substrate
can be inserted into three slots 41 of the three support boards 40
which are on the same plane; in other words, many glass substrates
can be contained vertically and separately in the box body 10.
Apparently, the horizontal support board 40 can be omitted while
achieving the same purpose, but the glass substrates may not be as
stable. After many glass substrates are held in the slots of the
three support boards 40, the edge 32 of the opening of the
dust-free bag 30 can be folded and sealed with tape, thus sealing
the many glass substrates within the dust-free bag. Furthermore,
the cover 20 is placed on the box body 10 to finish the packing
process so that the glass substrates are kept clean during
transportation.
[0022] Although the present invention has been explained in
relation to its preferred embodiment, it is to be understood that
many other possible modifications and variations can be made
without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as
hereinafter claimed.
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