GB2313095A - Mounting the removable walls on the wheeled platform of a mobile container - Google Patents

Abstract

The rectangular platform (12), which may be a single plastics moulding or of wood, is mounted on a rigid subframe (18) and has a load receiving deck (14), wheels (22) and a coupling member 28 which is received in a slot (26) in an outwardly directed edge (24) of the platform so as to lie flush with that edge. The wall (30), has a coupling member (32) which is offset inwardly of the wall (30) and which engages the coupling member (28) on the platform so that the wall member (30) is supported substantially perpendicular to the platform (12) and offset outwardly from the deck (14). The offset may be achieved by dog-leg portions 36 of the side-wall uprights which enter tubular sockets 28 or by a straight pin of semicircular crosssection which is offset from the side-wall (fig.5) or by dog-leg sockets on the side-wall which engage pins on the platform (fig.6). The offset enables the full surface area of the platform to be used while the use of a subframe enables lighter platforms to be used.

Description

A Platform Assembly The present invention relates to a platform assembly and is primarily concerned with rectangular, wheeled platform assemblies having removable side walls connected thereto to effectively form a mobile container.

Typically, the walls of such platform assemblies are removable to allow ease of loading and unloading of the assembly and, also, when such platform assemblies are not in use, to allow more compact storage. Since storage of such platform assemblies can prove expensive it is desired that the platform assemblies are as space efficient as possible and allow the greatest use of the surface area of such assemblies when transporting goods, whilst keeping such platform assemblies to as small a size as possible to facilitate their storage. One way to optimise the use of available surface area of such containers is to attach the wall members to the side of the platform, however, it has been found by simply attaching the walls directly to the edges in this way can create undue stress on the platform itself often leading to damage during use. One attempt to address such a problem is described in European Patent Publication No. 0 487 147 (Curtec Nederlands B.V.) wherein reinforcing metal profiles have been inserted into the platform to support the wall members. However inclusion of such profiles within the platform has resulted in the wall members being mounted on top of the effective surface area of the platform thereby reducing the capacity of the platform assembly.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a platform assembly which alleviates the aforementioned problems in a manner that provides maximum utiliage of the surface area of the platform assembly.

According to the present invention there is provided a platform assembly comprising a substantially rectangular platform having a flat load receiving deck, ground engaging roller means for moving the platform, a removable upstanding wall member and a substantially rigid subframe on which the platform is mounted, the wall member comprising a first coupling member for engagement with a second coupling member on the subframe to secure the wall member to the subframe, wherein the second coupling member is received within a slot in an outwardly directed edge of the platform so as to lie flush with the outwardly directed edge of the platform and the first coupling member is offset inwardly of said wall member so that said wall member is supported substantially perpendicular to the platform and offset outwardly from the deck. In this manner, the walls are supported offset from the deck so that all the deck area remains available for supporting goods thereon, effectively increasing the available deck area. Additionally, since the second coupling member is mounted on the rigid subframe then the weight of the wall members and associated stresses are borne by the subframe and not the platform, thus allowing the use of lightweight materials for the platform which do not have to bear such stress. Usually, the platform will be made of moulded plastics material, creating a lightweight assembly for ease of handling, whilst the subframe will be of metal to provide the required strength for supporting the wall members.

Preferably, one of the first and second coupling members comprises a pin like coupling member and the other of the first and second coupling member comprises pin receiving means.

Usually, the pin like coupling member comprises a cylindrical pin and pin receiving means comprises a hollow tube, providing a simple means of connection whereby the pin is slid into the tube, allowing the assembly to be easily constructed and dismantled.

In its usual embodiment, the first coupling member has a dog legged configuration to offset a lower end of the first coupling member inwardly from the wall member, thereby allowing the wall to be disposed outwardly of the deck when the first coupling member has engaged the second coupling member on the subframe.

In a preferred form, the wall member comprises two first coupling members and the subframe comprises two second coupling members along one side of the platform. However, if longer wall members are used additional coupling members may be used to increase stability of the wall member on the platform.

The subframe will usually comprise second coupling members disposed along all four sides of the platform for supporting four wall members, one each along the four edges of the platform, to allow formation of a conventional cage on the platform. This provides the additional advantage of restraining the platform from lateral displacement to the subframe, whereby the second coupling members, all secured to the subframe, engage the slots in all four sides of the platform. Thus, in use, the platform need not be fixedly attached to the subframe but simply rested thereon, allowing the assembly to be easily dismantled into its main components for ease of storage and allowing damaged parts to be replaced without the need of a whole new assembly if damage occurs.

A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying illustrative drawings in which: Figure 1 is an exploded perspective view of a platform assembly; Figure 2 is a part section along the line II-II of figure 1 showing the relationship between a wall member and the platform when engaged; Figure 3 is a part plan view of the platform in figure 1; Figure 4 is a part plan view of a platform according to known platform assemblies; Figure 5 is a part perspective view of a wall member comprising a second embodiment of the present invention; and Figure 6 is a side elevation of a wall member comprising a third embodiment according to the present invention.

A platform assembly 10 comprises a rectangular, substantially horizontal, platform 12 having a deck 14 and a base 16. This platform 12 comprising a single plastics moulding. The platform 12 is mounted on a substantially rectangular metal subframe 18 comprising four flat support struts 20 (only 2 shown in figure 1). The subframe is designed to provide additional strength to the plastics moulded platform 12 to provide a more rigid platform assembly by reinforcing the lightweight plastics material.

The sub-frame 18 has four conventional wheel structures 22 secured on the underside thereof, one disposed at each corner of said rectangular sub-frame 18. It should be appreciated that these wheel assemblies may be replaced by castor, roller assemblies or any other such roller means. Alternatively, it should also be appreciated that such wheel structures may be removable from the sub-frame 18 or may be removably or securely attached to the base 16 of the platform 12 by conventional means.

The platform 12 has four upstanding side walls 24, each of which are perpendicular to the deck 14, and each of the four side walls 24 has two recessed slots 26 extending inwardly therefrom and extending from the deck 14 to the base 16. The sub-frame 18 has securely fixed thereto (usually by welding), towards each corner thereof, two upstanding tubular metal pipes 28 which are so positioned on the sub-frame so that such pipes 28 are received flush within the recessed slots 26 of the platform 12 when said platform 12 is mounted on said sub-frame 18. As seen in figure 3 the outer most faces of the said metal pipes 28 are disposed flush with the side walls 24 so that they do not project therefrom.

In practice, the platform 12 may be securely fixed to the sub-frame 18, ie by bolting or by other conventional securing means, or may be simply rested on the sub-frame whereby the array of tubular metal pipes 28 in engagement with the slots 26 serve to restrain horizontal displacement of the platform relative to the sub-frame. This would allow the sub-frame to be easily disengaged from the platform 12 should either become damaged during use, allowing the damaged part to be replaced without bearing the full cost of an entire new assembly. Also by allowing dismantling of the platform assembly in this manner allows for easier storage of the separate parts thereof.

Upstanding wall members 30 (Figure 1) comprise conventional mesh frame structures having upstanding rigid bar frames 32 surrounding a mesh structure 33. The rigid bar frames 32 have downwardly extending pin like couplings 34 which are, as seen in figure 2, offset from the bar frames 32 by the inclusion of a dog-leg 36. These pin like couplings 34 are of a corresponding size to be received within the tubular metal pipes 28 of the subframe 18 to rigidly support the wall members 30 relative to the sub-frame 18 and to the platform 12.

As can be seen from Figure 2, the tubular metal pipes 28 are of a predetermined length so that when the platform 12 is mounted on the sub-frame 18 such pipes 28 extend only part way between the base 16 and the deck 14 so that the dog-leg 36 of the pin like couplings 34 is partially received within the associated recessed slot 26 so as to displace the bar frame 32 outwardly of the platform 12 so that they do not project through the deck 14 but have already been displaced sufficiently outwardly of the platform 12 by the dog-leg 36 so that the wall member 30 is held outwardly of the edge 24 of the platform. As seen in Figure 3 the offset of a wall member 30 enables the full surface area of the deck 14 to be used to transport goods whilst the wall members 30 still serve to support such transported goods.

In comparison, conventional means of mounting wall members on a platform (Figure 4) incorporates inserting coupling structures of the wall members into recesses 100 in a deck 114 of a platform 116 remote from the platform edge since these recesses 100 need to be supported by the platform itself to provide sufficient strength to hold wall member supported therein. As is clearly seen in Figure 4, by utilising such a method a large portion of the available deck 114 is rendered obsolete since it is unable to be utilised to stack goods thereon.

Thus, the platform assembly 10 of the present invention allows the complete surface area of the deck 14 to be utilised, which means that a greater transport capacity can be obtained for a standard size platform 12. This will obviously reduce the storage space required for the platform when not in use.

Furthermore, the use of a rigid sub-frame to support and bear the weight of wall members 30 enable the platform 12 itself to be made of a more lightweight substance, such as plastics, which allows for easier handling of such assemblies 10. Such lightweight materials could not on their own bear the weight of the wall members without risk of damage by the stresses applied thereto.

In addition, it should also be appreciated that, although only two wall members 30 are shown in Figure 1, a wall member 30 may be attached to each of the four sides of the platform 12 to form a cage structure, or any combination of one to four such wall members may be utilised as required. The present invention also allows for such wall members to be easily connected or disconnected from the platform as required which allows for ease of storage and transport.

Although Figure 1 shows a preferred embodiment of the present invention it should be appreciated that the scope of the invention is in no way restricted to this one embodiment. In particular, the design of the sub-frame may be altered as required provided that it is capable of supporting the platform 12 and has secured thereto tubular metal pipes 28 so as to engage the recessed slots 26. It should also be appreciated that, although we have used here tubular metal pipes 28 for engagement with pin like couplings 34 it is conceivable that the pin like couplings may have rectangular cross-sectional area for being received within a hollow rectangular structure to replace the metal pipe 28. In addition, the use of a dog-leg 36 with pin like coupling 34 may be replaced by simply offsetting the pin like coupling, as in Figure 5 (in which similar identified numbers are used to those in respect of Figure 1), wherein a semi-circular pin 34' is simply welded (or otherwise attached) to a wall member 30' so as to sit offset, inwardly, of the wall 30'. This coupling 34' is then received within a co-operating semi circular pipe 28' which is flush within a recessed slots 26' of a platform 12' please note that for illustrative purposes only, the semi circular metal pipe 28' as shown in Figure 5 is shown to be flush with a deck 14' for clarity only to show the shape of the semi circular pipe 28', whereas in practice for this embodiment the pipe 28' would terminate substantially below the deck 14' so that an upper end portion 37' of the pin 34' would lie flush with the deck 14' when said pin 34' is engaged with said pipe 28', the wall 30' would then lie adjacent a side wall 24' of the platform 12'. In this way the wall 30' is supported relative to the platform 12' but is held outwardly of the deck 14' so not to encroach any of the available storage surface thereof.

Figure 6 shows a further embodiment of the present invention whereby the use of the pin like couplings and the tubular metal pipes for receiving such a pin like coupling, are reversed to the embodiment as shown in Figures 1 and 2. In this manner the structure of the platform 12 remains unaltered and still incorporates recessed slots 26, but in this case the pin like coupling 38 is secured to the sub-frame 18 (usually by welding) and is received within the slot 26 so as to engage a tubular metal pipe structure 40 which is secured offset from the rigid bar frame 32 of the wall member 30 by a dog-leg 36 so that the wall member 30 is disposed offset from the platform in a similar manner to that shown in Figure 2.

Although the present invention is primarily directed to the use with plastics moulded platform structures it can equally be adapted for conventional wooden pallet structures to utilise optimum space on the decks thereof. Still further, the embodiment as shown in Figure 1 utilises two pin like couplings on each wall member 30 where as it will be appreciated that any required number of such pins may be used, depending on the size of the platform assembly. In addition, it will be appreciate that the size of the wall member 30 may extend beyond the rigid bar frame 32 so that when all four wall members 30 are mounted on the rectangular platform assembly then they effectively engage and form a sealed cage and, to this end, conventional connection means may be used to secure the upper part of the wall members to each other to increase the strength of such a cage.

Claims (10)

1. A platform assembly comprising a substantially rectangular platform having a flat load receiving deck, ground engaging roller means for moving the platform, a removable upstanding wall member and a substantially rigid subframe on which the platform is mounted, said wall member comprising a first coupling member for engagement with a second coupling member on said subframe to secure said wall member to said subframe, wherein said second coupling member is received within a slot in an outwardly directed edge of the platform so as to lie flush with the outwardly directed edge of the platform and said first coupling member is offset inwardly of said wall member so that said wall member is supported substantially perpendicular to said platform and offset outwardly from the deck.

2. An assembly as claimed in claim one wherein one of said first and second coupling members comprises a pin like coupling member and the other of said first and second coupling member comprises pin receiving means.

3. An assembly as claimed in claim 2 wherein said pin like coupling member comprises a cylindrical pin and pin receiving means comprises a hollow tube.

4. An assembly as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein said first coupling member has a dog legged configuration to offset a lower end of said first coupling member inwardly from said wall member.

5. An assembly as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which the platform is made of moulded plastics material.

6. An assembly as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which the subframe is made of metal.

7. An assembly as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which said wall member comprises two first coupling members and said subframe comprises two second coupling members along one side of said platform.

8. An assembly as claimed in any one of the preceding claims wherein said subframe comprises said second coupling members disposed along four sides of said platform for supporting four wall members, one each along the four edges of the platform.

9. An assembly as claimed in any one of the preceding claims in which said roller means are mounted on said subframe.

10. A platform assembly substantially as herein described with reference to the accompanying illustrative drawings.