Supports: racks – Special article – Tire or wheel type
Patent
1995-03-28
1998-05-19
Gibson, Jr., Robert W.
Supports: racks
Special article
Tire or wheel type
211194, 211 594, A47F 500
Patent
active
057526087
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a spacer rack for use in stacking wheel rims. Wheel rims used for motor vehicles, in particular wheel rims made of light alloy, are vulnerable to surface damage, and for this reason must be protected during transportation and storage. Packing such rims individually in cartons is relatively costly; in addition, the rims must be removed from the packaging in the sales room in order that the customer can see the rims.
If it is intended that the rims be transported and stored when stacked on pallets, it is essential to install spacers between the individual layers of the stack so as to prevent the rims from contacting each other and becoming damaged thereby. In addition, strapping or similar packaging measures must be used in order to ensure that the wheel rims making up the stack cannot shift sideways. The packaging effort that is required in order to do this is relatively great, especially because the packaging material that is used, such as corrugated cardboard, paper, or wooden frames, must be disposed of since it is either impossible or too costly to re-use it. This situation is exacerbated in that the mechanical demands made on the spacers are extremely high because the wheel rims, which are usually made in one piece with the wheel dishes, are relatively heavy; there are large load peaks for the spacers between the narrow edgers of the wheel rim that lie above each other, in particular if the wheel rims that lie one above the other shift relative to each other.
For this reason, it is the task of the present invention to create a spacer rack for stacking wheel rims, which makes it possible to form stable stacks of wheel rims without the danger that the wheel rims themselves will damage each other. The spacer racks should be easy to handle and be of only light weight; they should be suitable for repeated re-use and also permit the material used in them to be recycled.
SUMMARY OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention, this problem has been solved in that the spacer rack incorporates a plurality of rim holders that are of plastic, each of these consisting of a circular spacer ring and a projecting positioning edge that extends upward and downward.
Because of the precise and effective positioning of the wheel rims that lie one above the other, it is ensured that the forces that are to be transferred are distributed evenly over the whole edge of the wheel rim, so that unacceptably high stress peaks are avoided. In addition, compared to cardboard and similar materials, the plastic can withstand far greater loads so that the rims that lie one above the other cannot damage each other.
The amount of material used is relatively small because the rim holders are annular and are arranged only in the areas between wheel rims that lie above each other where proper spacing and centering are required, namely, in the area of the wheel rim edges. The rim holders can be installed singly between each two wheel rims that lie above each other in order to form a stack of four wheel rims one above the other, for example.
Because of their light weight, and because they take up very little room and are highly resistant to wear, the rim holders can be returned from the dealer to the manufacturer of the wheel rims at very little cost, and can thus be re-used. Because they are manufactured from plastic, all of the material can be recycled; the rim holders are chopped up and converted to plastic granulate and this can then be re-used in the manufacturing process.
According to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, provision is made such that a plurality of rim holders that lie in a common plane are connected to each other on their peripheries to form a mesh. This results in assembled spacer racks for large stacks of rims, when each layer of the stack comprises a plurality of wheel rims. Because the rim holders are joined to each other, all the wheel rims in one layer will be exactly aligned and at the same time all of the wh
REFERENCES:
patent: 2912139 (1959-11-01), Talley
patent: 3664497 (1972-05-01), Mascia
patent: 4593818 (1986-06-01), Schenkman
Gibson , Jr. Robert W.
Koenig Investment Group International Inc.
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