WO1996008417A1

WO1996008417A1 - One-piece pallet or load bearing base

Info

Publication number: WO1996008417A1
Application number: PCT/AU1995/000589
Authority: WO
Inventors: Peter Johnstone; Gary Emmerton
Original assignee: First Green Park Pty. Ltd.
Priority date: 1994-09-12
Filing date: 1995-09-08
Publication date: 1996-03-21
Also published as: AUPM806794A0

Abstract

Trough shaped member (10) has cantilever type flanges (11 and 12) on opposite sides of the trough. The arrangement is such that the size of the load bearing base is equivalent to a standard pallet size. Articles can be stacked onto the trough (10) of the load supporting base to be in the ground engaging portion of the base. Thereafter additional rows of articles may be stacked on the base layer of articles such that the base layer of articles absorb the large proportion of the load imparted by the stacked articles such that the extent of downwards force on the unsupported cantilever flanges (11 and 12) is not great. Once the load has been stacked in normal manner to the conventional height the load may be wrapped in standard manner with a plastic film to maintain the integrity of the stacked articles. The configuration of the surface of the trough (10) of the load bearing base may be configured to conform closely to the profile of any given article that may be stacked thereon for example cylindrical articles or square boxes or the like.

Description

ONE-PIECE PALLET OR LOAD BEARING BASE

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a lightweight load bearing base and packaging system.

Many attempts have been made to produce strong lightweight load bearing bases such as pallets of various materials ranging from timber, paper, steel and plastic materials. All products known to applicants suffer from the disadvantage of high cost and/or weight problems. Additional problems encountered with existing products are high back loading costs caused by high stack separation distances when the empty pallet is stacked and high weight. Transport operators are concerned at the high cost of freighting empty pallets because of the high volume requirement caused by high separation. PRIOR ART

Pallets made of various materials are well known including reinforced plastic moulded materials such as disclosed in US Patent No. 4103851 and US Patent No. 4183491. A mono block pallet of laminated material is disclosed in US Patent No. 4966083. A special purpose moulded pallet for drums is disclosed in US Patent No. 4263855 and a nesting pallet as disclosed in French publication No. 2616598.

US Patent No. 4966084 discloses a pallet for supporting articles having a bottom platen and a top member with spaces the spaces being fixed in rows between the top and bottom members and retained in position to provide a pallet type support.

Another example of a load bearing base is a so called "slip sheet" such as disclosed in WIPO Publication No. 89/00135 (PCT/US88/02100) for use with fork lift trucks which is fitted with a grabber bar to secure a tab on the sheets for pulling a load on the slip sheet onto the fork arms of a lift truck. Such a base requires special handling equipment for loading onto the lift truck. Variation on this construction have been proposed in which the seet may be configured in the form of a pallet shape, but which is non self supporting and requires shaping in accordance with the load stacked thereon and the particular mode of wrapping used for the loaded pallet.

The present applicant has previously disclosed a packaging system in publication No. WO/94/02358 (PCT/AU93/00365) for flowable or non flowable material in which a container is made with plastics material such as stretch plastic or a plastic bag and mounted on spacer members adapted to receive forks of a lift truck. In this disclosure the spacer members may be U shaped channel members which are secured to the load by wrapping with extra layers of plastic thereby providing a simple and effective pallet type base for the bulk container. SUMMARY OF THE PRESENT INVENTION

The present invention has as its primary objective the provision of a load bearing base in which at least some of the above disadvantages are addressed.

In particular it is an objective of the present invention to provide a packaging system which includes a packaged load having a self supporting pallet type base that can be conveniently handled by a fork lift vehicle.

It is a further objective that the base is separable from the load and is stackable thereby including a low separation dimension.

It is a further objective to provide a pallet type load bearing base in which part of the load is disposed below the load bearing line of the base wherein the fork tine and engaging surface is preferably an unsupported cantilever flange on at least two sides of the load bearing base. In a further embodiment the flange is supported.

In one aspect of the invention there is provided a load handling system in which a load comprised of stackable articles is arranged in a predetermined pattern such that the load has a dimension smaller at least in one direction as compared with a dimension in a transverse direction, the load being stackable upon a self supporting pallet type load bearing base said base including recessed portions adapted to receive fork lifting tines therein to lift and handle said load wherein those stackable articles adjacent to said load bearing base are located at least partially below the level of said recessed portions.

The invention also provides a system as defined wherein the articles are stacked in such a way as to minimise the loading upon said fork receiving recessed portions.

In a further aspect of the invention, there is provided a load bearing base for use with a forklift truck including a ground engaging base and a raised self supporting flange on at least two sides of the base to form a raised portion for receiving forklift tines, wherein the load bearing base is adapted to receive a loader which part thereof is located below the level of the raised flanges and in which the load is thereby supported by the ground engaging base.

The invention also provides a system as defined wherein the load is wrapped by plastic film in at least one direction but preferably two directions about a substantially vertical and horizontal axis to maintain the integrity of the load on the load bearing base as a stand alone package.

The invention also provides a system wherein the recessed portions are located to allow four way access with the tines of a fork lift truck.

In a further aspect of the present invention there is provided a load bearing base adapted for use with a fork lift truck including a ground engaging base and a raised flange on at least two sides of the base to form a raised portion adapted to receive fork lift tines wherein the load bearing base is adapted to receive a load of which a part thereof is located below the level of the raised flanges and in which the load is supported by the ground engaging base, the raised flanges include integral ground contacting support means.

In a further aspect the invention includes a raised flange which is an unsupported cantilever on at least two sides of the load supporting base.

The load bearing base can conveniently be formed by a pressing step from flat plastic sheet. The invention is useful in handling stackable or flowable loads which a large proportion is supported on the ground engaging part of the base. This enables the flange portion to be constructed of lightweight material having the ability to support a small proportion of the total weight of the load and yet receive the tines of the fork lift truck. The edge of the raised flange may be folded back upon itself to form rounded edges and is adapted to contact plastic load wrapping sheet which may be formed from shrink or stretch plastic film. The invention will now be described in greater detail having reference to the accompanying drawings in which figures 1 to 4 show plan, elevational and perspective views of a load bearing base in accordance with the invention having a two way fork tine entry. Figures 5 to 8 show a plan, elevation and perspective views of a modified load bearing base of the invention for four way entry of fork lift tine.

Figures 9 and 10 show alternative forms of the invention including ground engaging surfaces 20 together with spaced apart tine receiving channels 21 as shown. Figure 11 shows the nesting ability of the load bearing base.

Figure 12 is a front prospective view of a further embodiment of a load bearing base showing the folded edges.

Figures 13, 14 and 15 show front prospective view of further embodiments of the load supporting base. With reference to Figures 1 to 4 there is shown a trough shaped member

10 having cantilever type flanges 11 and 12 on opposite sides of the trough. The arrangement is such that the size of the load bearing base is equivalent to a standard pallet size which in Australia is 46" x 46". It will be appreciated that articles can be stacked into the trough 10 of the load supporting base to be in direct with the ground engaging portion of the base. Thereafter additional rows of articles may be stacked on the base layer of articles such that the base layer of articles absorb the large proportion of the load imparted by the stacked articles such that the extent of downwards force on the unsupported cantilever flanges 11 and 12 is not great. Once the load has been stacked in normal manner to the conventional height the load may be wrapped in standard manner with a plastic film such as a stretch plastic film to maintain the integrity of the stacked articles.

It will be appreciated that the configuration of the surface of the trough 10 of the load bearing base may be configured to conform closely to the profile of any given article that may be stacked thereon for example cylindrical articles or square boxes or the like. With reference to Figures 5 to 8 these drawings show a standard

European pallet having the dimensions 1100 mm by 960 mm and includes an unsupported cantilever flange 15 on each side of the load supporting surface which is formed as a trough on the base 16. In this way four way entry for fork tines can be achieved with this load supporting base.

The trough of the load supporting base may be formed with slightly tapering sides to enable the unloaded bases to be conveniently stacked on top of one another when empty to achieve low dimension separation of no more that 40 mm between each load supporting base. The material of the base is conveniently made from plastic particularly recycled plastic. However it will be appreciated that any material including metal, cardboard, wood or fibreglass can be utilised in the manufacture of the supporting base. Furthermore the supporting base can be used in conjunction with bags wherein the predominant weight of the bag is taken by the trough of the load supporting base 16.

The flange height or bowl depth of the load supporting base can be varied to suit different sized articles that may be stacked in the base.

It will be appreciated that the load supporting base can be made from lightweight materials that have good compressive strength and integrity but can be easily made from non contaminate materials and having relatively low weight.

In one embodiment of the invention the base can be used for holding liquid containers wherein access to the container can be achieved through a hole formed in the middle of the trough of the load bearing base for safe discharge of liquid from the container as desired.

The floor of the trough preferably in the vicinity of the centre may be apertured or adapted to have an aperture formed therein to allow removal of flowable materials directly through the bottom of the base. Alternatively the base part may include a fitting to receive a funnel to direct flow of such materials. In each instance a large part of the base is used to accommodate a proportion of the pallet load in space normally not utilised in a conventional pallet base. The pallet may be modified to operate as a conventional full load bearing pallet by filling the trough with solid filler insert material such as timber, compressed paper or solid plastic thereby building the level of the base up to the level of the flange 11 , 12 or 15.

Referring to Figures 9 and 10 the arrangement is such that the load can be supported upon the surfaces 20 below the level of the channel surfaces 21a so that this part of the load will support a large proportion of the load on the load supporting base. Figure 10 shows keeper plates 22 for the strengthening and protection of the base of the load. Additional plates (not shown) on the other two sides may be also used. Referring to the embodiments illustrated in Figures 12 to 15, these views show alternative forms of the load supporting base in which the flanges 11 , 12 are supported in various ways.

Referring to Figures 13 and 14, the flanges 11 , 12 are extended downwardly by a support member 17 adapted to engage the floor in use. In this form, the load supporting base will have greater structural integrity.

With reference to Figure 12, the edges of the flanges, 11 , 12 are folded at

18 and then depend to the ground level by virtue of support member 18 to provide a rounded engaging edge for the wrapping film which may be either stretch or shrink wrap film. With reference to Figure 15, the support member 17 is extended to the base and may be welded thereto along the line 19 to form an integrated structure.

With reference to Figure 13, the configuration of the ending flanges 17 allows for two way entry of tines, either from each end of the base or from each side of the base.

Claims

THE CLAIMS DEFINING THE INVENTION ARE AS FOLLOWS:

1. A load handling system in which a load comprised of stackable articles is arranged in a predetermined pattern such that the load has a dimension smaller at least in one direction as compared with a dimension in a transverse direction, the load being stackable upon a pallet type load bearing base said base including recessed portions adapted to receive fork lifting tines therein to lift and handle said load wherein those stackable articles adjacent to said load bearing base are located at least partially below the level of said recessed portions.

2. A load bearing base adapted for use with a fork lift truck including a ground engaging base and a raised flange on at least two sides of the base to form a raised portion adapted to receive fork lift tines wherein the load bearing base is adapted to receive a load of which a part thereof is located below the level of the raised flanges and in which the load is supported by the ground engaging base.

3. A load bearing base as claimed in claim 2 wherein the raised flange which an unsupported cantilever on at least two sides of the load supporting base.

4. A load bearing base as claimed in claim 2 wherein the raised flange is a supported cantilever member on at least two sides of the load supporting base.

5. A load bearing base as claimed in claim 2 or claim 3 wherein the base will support stackable or flowable loads in which a proportion of the load is supported below the level of the raised flange on the ground engaging part of the base.

6. A load bearing base as claimed in claim 2 wherein the raised flange on at least two sides of the base are folded back upon itself to form a rounded folded edge.

7. A load bearing base as claimed in claim 4 wherein the raised flange is supported by a depending member adapted to contact the ground with the member extending across to the ground engaging base.

8. A load bearing base as claimed in claim 7 wherein the extension of the flange is attached to the ground engaging base.