Wooden receptacles – Tanks
Patent
1998-11-03
2000-03-28
Castellano, Stephen
Wooden receptacles
Tanks
220 433, 220 417, 220608, 220676, B65D 8852
Patent
active
060419547
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention is concerned with a container for liquids, in particular for wine and for strong alcohols.
With the advent of cooperage, amphorae and other ancient flasks, which were too easily broken, were replaced by casks, barrels, vats and tuns and other containers of various capacities, made of wood and in particular oak-wood. More recently, such containers were made of metal, in particular of stainless steel, while retaining the shape of usual barrels, which offers the advantage of a certain facility of handling and of a relatively small volume of air in the vicinity of the filling opening, above the surface of the liquid filling the barrel.
The present invention is aimed at providing a container, which, while allowing the use of conventional wood as the preferred material but also of other materials such as metal and while retaining the advantage of a reduced volume of air in the filled container, would also be much cheaper to manufacture than the conventional barrels and would facilitate, in particular, the transport, the storage and further the disassembling and the reassembling of these containers.
To this end, the container according to the invention is characterised in that it has substantially the shape of a rectangular parallelepiped or of a cube and in that it comprises six panels forming the faces of the container, namely a bottom panel, a top panel, a front panel, a back panel and two side panels, the top panel having, in the vicinity of its front edge, substantially in the middle between the side panels, a filling hole, the inner surface of the top panel forming, with respect to a horizontal plane, three wedges, namely a first prismatic wedge exhibiting a surface which slopes downwards relative to a horizontal plane, in the direction from the front panel to the back panel and two side wedges having each one a flat surface sloping towards said sloping surface of the first wedge from one point located on the inner ridge formed by a corresponding side panel and the front panel, up to the vicinity of said filling hole.
Preferably, the first wedge is provided for by the sloping of a top panel of a constant thickness, each one of the lateral wedges consisting of a piece which is substantially of a tetrahedral shape.
The front panel can include an outlet hole in the vicinity of the bottom panel, this bottom panel sloping preferably downwards in the direction of the front panel.
The top and the bottom panels are preferably mounted between the two side panels and the assembly carries advantageously joining grooves at the positions of junction between the different panels. Sealing members can be placed in these joining grooves.
According to a preferred embodiment, the container is provided with spars disposed at least on the side panels, two opposite spars being held at their ends by two metal rods extending over the width of the top and of the bottom panels. Advantageously, these rods have at least one threaded end for receiving a nut.
Other characteristics, objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the description made hereafter of an exemplary embodiment illustrated in the appended drawing, wherein
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a container according to the invention;
FIG. 2 is a cross-sectional view of the container of FIG. 1, taken longitudinally;
FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view taken along line III--III of FIG. 2; and
FIG. 4 is a rear view of the same container.
FIG. 1 shows the general shape of the container of which the envelope is a rectangular parallelepiped. This container is formed from six panels, for example made of oak-wood, of which one can see in FIG. 1 the side panels 1 and 2, the top panel 3, the bottom panel 4 and the front panel 5, whereas the back panel is not visible. The different panels are assembled by means of joining grooves, such as 6, and the assembly is reinforced, in this example, by side spars 7, 8, 9 and 10 and by horizontal spars disposed on the top and bottom panels, of which only the spars 11 and 12 can be seen in FIG. 1.
The top
REFERENCES:
patent: 3964636 (1976-06-01), Rehrig
patent: 4093099 (1978-06-01), Spooner
patent: 4930648 (1990-06-01), Hundt
patent: 4953730 (1990-09-01), Prime et al.
Browning Clifford W.
Castellano Stephen
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