Material or article handling – Plural – static structures for supporting discrete loads and... – Load-underlying members
Patent
1994-04-20
1996-07-23
Werner, Frank E.
Material or article handling
Plural, static structures for supporting discrete loads and...
Load-underlying members
414276, 198838, 193 35A, 193 37, B65G 104
Patent
active
055383840
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL AREA
The present invention relates to the area of storage and conveyance. It has to do with a pallet-support rail for the conveyance of pallets and containers, including
(a) a pallet-support chain in the form of a roller chain with a plurality of evenly spaced support rollers arranged one behind the other;
(b) a running rail on which the support rollers roll; and
(c) a plurality of support straps which are connected with the support rollers and are displaceable with respect to the running rail by means of the support rollers.
The invention further relates to a slide-in storage unit for storing pallets and similar containers, the slide-in storage unit including a plurality of shelving channels in side by side and/or vertically stacked arrangement, for the successive lodging and removal of a plurality of pallets and containers from an end of the storage unit.
The invention also relates to a transportation track for the conveyance of pallets and similar containers.
Such a pallet support rail, such a slide-in storage unit, and such a transportation track are, for example, known from the publication U.S. Pat. No. 4,662,511.
STATE OF THE ART
In the area of the storage of pallets or similar containers, there is a need for a conveying track for pallets, primarily wooden pallets, which offers very small resistance to the horizontal movement of the pallet, particularly at the initiation of movement. This conveying track should have the smallest possible vertical height, so that it can be installed in pallet storage units. Such height should be substantially smaller than the height of the typical wooden pallet (<50%), but not by making the roller diameter too small. In order to allow these conveying tracks to be installed in storage units, the said height should nowhere be exceeded, including at the ends of the track where the chain reversal takes place.
One type of conveying track used previously for pallets utilizes a row of aligned rollers upon which the bottom surface of the pallet rolls. Since these bottom surfaces are very irregular and often damaged, there arises a rolling resistance which is high and difficult to calculate, and which for example does not allow a reliable self-starting with the preferred small inclination of the track. The track inclination must always be sufficient, even in the worst case, to generate a sufficient driving force, and therefore it must be quite substantial. However, if it should happen that the roller resistance is small, the excess driving force resulting from the large inclination will lead to dangerous accelerations and thus to inadmissable pallet speeds. Thus, with this approach, expensive braking systems are unavoidable. Analogously, dangerous conditions arise when an attempt is made to shove pallets along a conveyor track against a substantial track inclination in a storage unit, particularly when using the storage technique of the so-called slide-in storage unit, which is more and more being utilized.
Various proposals have already been made for minimizing the risks described above. The described disadvantage can, for example, be basically avoided if the direct, unreliable contact between the underside of the pallet and the rollers is eliminated by the provision of intermediate elements on which the pallets sit without relative movement, the intermediate elements in turn running along the rollers with underside surfaces that are constructed in a mechanically satisfactory way.
The intermediate element which has been the most in use up to now, specifically an auxiliary pallet with the best quality underside which is always connected with the conveying system, has the disadvantage of requiring additional room and the complication that it must be located below the actual load-bearing pallet. Furthermore, catalogued and internationally standardized transport chains are of little use for the described purpose. Such transport chains are intended for unnecessarily high tensile forces, but have such a high resistance against horizontal displacement that they must
REFERENCES:
patent: 2806631 (1957-09-01), Van Vactor
patent: 4662511 (1987-05-01), Greener
Marino Zimmermann
Werner Frank E.
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