Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Enclosed compartment
Patent
1995-01-17
1998-11-17
Pape, Joseph D.
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Enclosed compartment
296181, 414679, 414495, 414507, B60P 305
Patent
active
058366369
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The invention of this application relates to improvements in the loading and unloading of goods in a goods storage area whether the goods are in transit or in a warehouse. Typically, although not exclusively, the invention will be used in trailers or trucks for the transport of goods, but reference hereto will not be taken to exclude any other storage area. The invention leads to improvements in the storage capacity of said storage areas. The invention provides a system for an adjustable floor or series of floors which will be movable in relation to the storage area.
Typically vehicle trailers or trucks, whether they be road or rail trailers or trucks are used to carry articles which, when carried, do not fill the trailer or do not properly fit into the trailer. Alternatively, trailers and trucks are built to a cubic capacity which enables safe loading but which falls short of the designed carrying capacity of the vehicle. This is due typically to difficulties encountered in the loading of said goods into the trailer or truck and stacking said goods when they are in the trailer itself. When attempting to stack goods problems are encountered in safely stacking the goods and also preventing damage to said goods. It is therefore commonly the case that conventional vehicle trailers or trucks, although carrying the maximum possible load, have unused space left therein due to the inability to stack the goods in that space whether due to safety or size restraints. This is a problem which has been attempted to be solved by the use of scissor lifts let into the floor of the lower deck. A further problem is encountered in those trailers or trucks which incorporate a step at the front of the trailer to utilise the space available above the vehicle and trailer coupling. The main problem involves lifting the goods onto this stepped area and it Is found that this area is on occasion not used due to these difficulties.
Furthermore it is evident that current lifting and goods moving requirements lead to the human loaders undertaking tasks which are in contravention of increasingly stringent Health & Safety requirements. At present up to 17 million working days are lost through back injury caused by bad lifting techniques, and companies which operate goods storage and transporting facilities are increasingly accountable for non-compliance of the correct loading practice.
As a result of these problems several solutions have been used. The first is to provide a second deck inside the trailer or truck which provides in effect two loading floors. This has been found to be effective in relation to the transport of white goods such as washing machines, but problems have been found in that although the stacking of goods is improved due to the provision of the second loading surface the same shape and size constraints and loading requirements still apply and optimum loading is not achieved. Further, the level of adaptability of the two deck arrangement is insufficient and also the requirement to load goods onto the top deck can be both time consuming and dangerous to the loaders by the use of external unguarded tail lifts at excessive heights.
A further development has been the provision of hydraulic ram operated movable floors. These floors are provided such that the goods can be lifted onto the floor and the floor subsequently moved upwardly toward the top of the trailer to leave a second, commonly fixed, floor thereunder upon which further goods can be loaded. Problems encountered with this method of loading are that each of the moving floors requires a hydraulic ram and therefore the machinery required to provide said moving floors with the ram located under the floor is bulky and the use of hydraulic systems in relation to certain goods is not desirable and is of further disadvantage due to ineffective security locking.
Other known systems include that disclosed in DE 2740034 which discloses a cattle truck which comprises the provision of a fixed floor and two intermediate floors, each of which is movable. However, in this ca
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patent: 3006485 (1961-10-01), Martin
patent: 3516706 (1970-06-01), Bruce
patent: 3591246 (1971-07-01), Adams
patent: 4642018 (1987-02-01), Leroux et al.
patent: 4887328 (1989-12-01), Apgar
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