Vehicle elevator

Material or article handling – Apparatus particularly adapted for charging or discharging a... – With means to transfer – or facilitate transfer of – vehicle...

Patent

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Details

414255, 414259, 414264, 414280, B65G 104

Patent

active

056181493

DESCRIPTION:

BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to storage systems having a plurality of storage bays for storing articles. More particularly it relates to a system useful in storing vehicles.


BACKGROUND ART

In urban areas it is common to provide multilevel car parking buildings. The buildings have multiple floors connected by ramps. One drives a vehicle from floor to floor until a free parking bay is found. Such car parks have a low usage of floor space due to the need for roadways and the requirement that each parking bay be sufficiently large to allow a vehicle to be driven into the bay and for the driver and any passengers to exit the vehicle.
It has been proposed to replace access ramps with a vertical lift to each floor. However it is still necessary to provide roadways on each floor and large size parking bays. It has also been proposed to use lifts which not only have a platform which can be moved vertically to access parking bays on different levels but which also have a transport device which moves the vertical lift horizontally to access laterally adjoining parking bays.


DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides in one of its aspects a Lifting transfer device for use in a storage system having a plurality of first storage bays, each storage bay having an access opening through which an object may be inserted into or removed from the storage bay, said access openings arranged in a first common surface, the device comprising: parallel to the common surface; relative to the transport means and in a direction parallel to the common surface; and said first wheeled trolley supported on the lift means and movable thereon from a position distant from the storage bay to a position next to or partially in the storage bay, and drive means having first and second modes of operation, said first mode of operation causing said first wheeled trolley to move relative to the lift means and said second mode of operation for driving the object from the wheeled trolley into the storage bay or from the storage bay onto the wheeled trolley whilst the first wheeled trolley is prevented from moving relative to the lift means.
Preferably the object comprises a second wheeled trolley adapted to be supported on the first wheeled trolley and adapted to support a wheeled vehicle.
In a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a storage system comprising a first plurality of storage bays, each storage bay having an access opening through which an object may be inserted into or removed from the storage bay, said access openings arranged in a first common surface, and a lifting transfer device of the abovementioned kind.
Preferably the storage bays are arranged with their openings arranged on at least one vertical surface.
More preferably the vertical surface is planar.
Preferably the transport means is movable run along a horizontally extending track.
Preferably the lift means is cantilevered from the main frame of the transport means and extends transversely of the vertical face.
More preferably the main frame comprises two spaced apart parallel uprights and the lift means comprises a sub-frame having two spaced apart parallel L-shaped support members, each depending from a respective upright.
More preferably the uprights comprise I beams and the support members include guide wheels which run in the channels of the I beams.
Preferably the storage bays are arranged in two stacks with the openings of the stacks opposing and at least one lifting transfer device located intermediate the opposing openings.
Preferably the or each lifting transfer device is capable of moving an object to any bay in both stacks. Even more preferably there are provided two lifting transfer devices located intermediate the opposing openings, each of which may access any bay in both stacks.


BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be better understood from the following description of a preferred but non-limiting embodiment which is provided with reference to the drawings in which:
FIG. 1 is a schematic persp

REFERENCES:
patent: 2840187 (1958-06-01), Bianca
patent: 2845189 (1958-07-01), Sanders
patent: 2876913 (1959-03-01), Roth et al.
patent: 3800963 (1974-04-01), Holland
patent: 5018926 (1991-05-01), Sternad
patent: 5238348 (1993-08-01), Reimer

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