EP0610100A1 - Schale zum Lagern und Stapeln von Gegenständen - Google Patents

Schale zum Lagern und Stapeln von Gegenständen Download PDF

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Publication number
EP0610100A1
EP0610100A1 EP94300890A EP94300890A EP0610100A1 EP 0610100 A1 EP0610100 A1 EP 0610100A1 EP 94300890 A EP94300890 A EP 94300890A EP 94300890 A EP94300890 A EP 94300890A EP 0610100 A1 EP0610100 A1 EP 0610100A1
Authority
EP
European Patent Office
Prior art keywords
tray
rows
walls
bottles
articles
Prior art date
Legal status (The legal status is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the status listed.)
Granted
Application number
EP94300890A
Other languages
English (en)
French (fr)
Other versions
EP0610100B1 (de
Inventor
Michael Christopher Embleton
Jeffrey Graham Pitt
Current Assignee (The listed assignees may be inaccurate. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the list.)
FORMOLD Ltd
Original Assignee
FORMOLD Ltd
Priority date (The priority date is an assumption and is not a legal conclusion. Google has not performed a legal analysis and makes no representation as to the accuracy of the date listed.)
Filing date
Publication date
Application filed by FORMOLD Ltd filed Critical FORMOLD Ltd
Publication of EP0610100A1 publication Critical patent/EP0610100A1/de
Application granted granted Critical
Publication of EP0610100B1 publication Critical patent/EP0610100B1/de
Anticipated expiration legal-status Critical
Expired - Lifetime legal-status Critical Current

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Classifications

    • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
    • B65—CONVEYING; PACKING; STORING; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL
    • B65D—CONTAINERS FOR STORAGE OR TRANSPORT OF ARTICLES OR MATERIALS, e.g. BAGS, BARRELS, BOTTLES, BOXES, CANS, CARTONS, CRATES, DRUMS, JARS, TANKS, HOPPERS, FORWARDING CONTAINERS; ACCESSORIES, CLOSURES, OR FITTINGS THEREFOR; PACKAGING ELEMENTS; PACKAGES
    • B65D71/00—Bundles of articles held together by packaging elements for convenience of storage or transport, e.g. portable segregating carrier for plural receptacles such as beer cans or pop bottles; Bales of material
    • B65D71/70—Trays provided with projections or recesses in order to assemble multiple articles, e.g. intermediate elements for stacking

Definitions

  • This invention relates to storage and/or transit stacking of articles.
  • the invention is more particularly concerned with methods of stacking bottles or other articles, of the kind in which a plurality of arrays of rows of the articles are stacked one upon the other with each array standing on an upper-surface of an individual one of a plurality of trays in the stack, and in which restraint against lateral movement of articles out of their rows is exercised by engagement of tops of the articles with row-constraining walls configured in the under-surface of the tray which is immediately above in the stack.
  • GB-A-2257121 Methods of this specified kind are described in GB-A-2257121 for stacking flasks and other bottles for safe storage and transport.
  • the trays used in these methods are each of a thermo-formed sheet construction in which the walls of channels engaged on the under-surface by the tops of the bottles, are configured by elongate troughs in the upper-surface.
  • the trays of bottles are stacked one upon the other with the bottom tray standing on a pallet and each of the others resting on the tops of the array of bottles beneath.
  • a further tray is placed on the tops of the bottles of the uppermost array to complete the stack in preparation for bonding the stack together and to the pallet, using, for example, a plastics-film envelope thermally shrunk on.
  • the present invention is based upon the realisation that it is not necessary for the tops of all the bottles or other articles of a row to be engaged with row-constraining walls of the tray above in the stack. It has been found that provided the tops of some of the articles of a row are engaged, and more especially the tops of the articles at either end of the row, adequate restraint against lateral movement can be achieved. This has advantage in connection with the unloading of the bottles or other articles from the stack.
  • Unloading of bottles from a stack is commonly carried out automatically either by sweeping the arrays of bottles from the trays of the stack in turn, or by lifting them individually all together from each successive tray. Once the bottles of the tray have been removed, the tray is itself removed by hand or machine to reveal the array of bottles standing on the tray below.
  • removal of the tray requires it to be lifted before it can be moved to one side clear of the remainder of the stack. Lifting is necessary in order to break the engagement existing between the walls on the under-surface of the tray and the tops of the bottles beneath.
  • the frictional resistance to disengagement is, in general, reduced as compared with what is experienced with trays of the form described in GB-A-2257121.
  • the reduction in frictional resistance is of advantage in that disengagement is less likely to cause disturbance of the array when the tray is removed; it is also of especial benefit in reducing the effort required where removal is by hand.
  • interrupted row-constraining walls is also, however, of particular advantage in the context of automated handling of the trays during both the loading and unloading processes.
  • Automated handling of trays during loading and unloading is conventionally carried out using suction-pads that are brought down onto the upper-surface of the empty tray to lift it up under vacuum before swinging it onto, or, as the case may be, away from, the stack.
  • suction-pad equipment of this nature cannot be used successfully with trays of a sheet-moulded form such as described in GB-A-2257121, where the side-walls of the channels are defined by troughs moulded into the upper-surface of the sheet. The breaking up of the upper-surface with the troughs does not in general leave regions of flat surface that are extensive enough to allow the necessary suction-pad seal to be firmly established.
  • the invention facilitates the provision and use of a form of sheet-moulded tray having an upper-surface with one or more flat, unbroken regions of sufficient extent for suction-pad sealing. Regions of this nature can in this respect be readily created by choice of the locations and extent of interruptions in the row-constraining walls of the under-surface of the tray; troughs are simply omitted from the corresponding locations of the upper-surface. More particularly, a plurality of flat, unbroken regions suitable for suction-pad sealing may be provided spaced from one another across the upper-surface of the tray, simply by omitting troughing in those regions.
  • the upper-surface of the tray may be configured to divide that surface into parallel guideways for separating the rows from one another.
  • These guideways may be defined between ridges that are upstanding from the upper-surface of the tray; such ridges may be interrupted where one or more flat regions, for example for suction-pad sealing, are required. Separation of the rows from one another using ridges or other means, is not, however, generally necessary where the articles of adjacent rows abut one another.
  • more than one thousand identical glass bottles 1 are loaded together on a wooden pallet 2 to stand upright with one another in five rectangular arrays of twenty-three rows each, that are stacked one upon the other.
  • Five identical moulded-sheet trays 3 are included in the stack to locate and retain the bottles 1 together in the five arrays.
  • a tray 3 of the first, bottom array of the stack stands directly on the pallet 2 with the bottles 1 of that array standing upright on the tray 3, and with a tray 3 of the second array standing on the tops of the bottles 1 of the first.
  • the bottles 1 of the second array similarly stand upright in their tray 3, and a third tray 3 of the next, third array stands on them.
  • This stacking arrangement in which each successive array of bottles 1 stands in its individual tray 3 on the array beneath, is repeated for the third to fifth arrays.
  • Five trays 3 are used for the five arrays; a sixth tray 3 (not shown) stands on the tops of the bottles 1 in the fifth, uppermost array, to top off the stack.
  • the whole, including the pallet 2 is encased in shrink-film (not shown) to hold the stack tightly together as one for secure storage and/or transit.
  • each tray 3 is rectangular and has an upstanding peripheral wall 4.
  • the wall 4 is configured to the bounding contour of the array of bottles 1 as they are loaded to stand against one another in staggered rows on the upper-surface 5 of the tray 3.
  • the upper-surface 5 is flat apart from troughs 6 that run lengthwise of the rows.
  • the troughs 6 configure the under-surface 7 to define side-walls 8 of channels 9 that extend in central register with the bottle-rows above.
  • Each channel 9 is closed at both ends and receives the tops of the bottles 1 of a respective row of bottles 1 of the tray 3 beneath in the stack.
  • the ends of the channels 9 are defined by rounded troughs 10 (see Figure 2) in the upper-surface 5, and the side-walls 8 are flared out slightly to ease entry of the tops of the bottles 1 to the channels 9.
  • the length and width of each channel 9 are chosen to be just sufficient to accommodate the tops of the bottles 1.
  • each side-wall 8 of the tray 3 in the present case is configured by an in-line sequence of short-length troughs 6 in the upper-surface 5.
  • the troughs 6 vary in length from one location to another. In particular, they are confined to parts of the upper-surface 5 which lie outside some eight or more circular regions 11 that are symmetrically spaced from one another across the upper-surface 5 of the tray 3.
  • the flat, unbroken regions 11 of the upper-surface 5 are each of sufficient extent to enable good sealing contact to be established with the tray 3 by the respective suction-pads of tray-lifting equipment provided at a bottle-loading and/or unloading station.
  • the bottles 1 in each array are held firmly against movement within their own tray 3, but are also held fast with respect to other arrays in the stack by the interlocking of the trays 3 with one another through the bottles 1 on which they stand.
  • the bottles 1 are held within their own tray 3 by the general confinement exercised at their bottoms by the surrounding wall 4, and, importantly, by the nesting channel-engagement of their tops with the tray 3 above them in the stack.
  • the interruptions in the side-walls 8 of the channels 9 will leave the tops of some bottles 1 without full, or even any, channel-constraint, such bottles 1 are nonetheless found to be restrained adequately against movement laterally and longitudinally of their rows. They are held against lateral movement within the interruptions by abutment with the bottles 1 of the adjacent rows, and against longitudinal movement by such of the other bottles 1 in their same row that do have side-wall engagement.
  • the tray 3 is thermo-formed from a sheet of high-impact polystyrene.
  • the sheet which for example, may have a thickness of 2 mm, is thermo-formed over a mould that conforms positively, with allowance for sheet thickness, to the configuration of the upper-surface 5 required.
  • the abutting and closely-staggered formation of the bottles 1 provided by the rectangular tray 3, allows diagonal- or slanting-row patterns to be identified in the array, as well as rows running lengthwise or widthwise.
  • the channels 9 in the under-surface 5 may run parallel to any such pattern of rows.
  • the wall 4 need not be configured to conform to the outer contour of the array of bottles 1, but may be straight. Furthermore, the wall 4, rather than completely enclosing the upper-surface 5 of the tray 3, may be omitted from one end so as to allow for the bottles 1 to be swept from the tray 3 over that end, during unloading; clearly, the wall 4 in this case is desirably straight along at least the two longitudinal sides of the tray.
  • thermo-formed trays of the form shown in Figures 5 and 6 are used. With such trays, row definition on the under-surface of each tray is limited to the ends and outer margins of the tray.
  • the tray 23 has a peripheral wall 24 to its upper-surface 25, configured to the bottoms of the bottles 1 as they stand against one another in staggered rows.
  • the upper-surface 25 is flat throughout, apart from a single line of short-length troughs 26 that run lengthwise of the tray 23 on each side just within the wall 24.
  • the troughs 26 configure the under-surface 27 of the tray 23 to define side-walls 28 for restraining the tops of the bottles in the outermost rows, from lateral movement.
  • tray 23 is of a form suitable for use in providing the four intermediate trays (and possibly the top tray) of a stack constructed as illustrated in Figure 1, it may be found desirable to use a different form for the bottom tray standing directly on the pallet 2. If the same form is used, it is desirable to insert one or more packing pieces (eg of wood or plastics) beneath the tray to give support to the under-surface 27 between the walls 28.
  • packing pieces eg of wood or plastics
  • the wall 24, instead of being configured to conform to the outer contour of the array of bottles 1, may be straight.
  • the rounded troughs 30 may be replaced by straight troughs corresponding to the troughs 26 and extending parallel to the ends of the tray. It will be appreciated furthermore, that a single trough may be provided just within the wall 24 to extend around all four sides of the tray 23.
  • bottles referred to above are all empty and without closure caps, the forms of tray and the methods of stacking described, are readily adaptable also to the stacked storage and/or transit of bottles when filled and capped.

Landscapes

  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
  • Packages (AREA)
  • Buffer Packaging (AREA)
  • Stackable Containers (AREA)
  • Packaging Of Special Articles (AREA)
  • Container Filling Or Packaging Operations (AREA)
  • Packaging Frangible Articles (AREA)
  • Containers And Packaging Bodies Having A Special Means To Remove Contents (AREA)
EP94300890A 1993-02-05 1994-02-07 Schale zum Lagern und Stapeln von Gegenständen Expired - Lifetime EP0610100B1 (de)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Application Number Priority Date Filing Date Title
GB939302248A GB9302248D0 (en) 1993-02-05 1993-02-05 Storage and/or transit stacking of articles
GB9302248 1993-02-05

Publications (2)

Publication Number Publication Date
EP0610100A1 true EP0610100A1 (de) 1994-08-10
EP0610100B1 EP0610100B1 (de) 1997-05-14

Family

ID=10729887

Family Applications (1)

Application Number Title Priority Date Filing Date
EP94300890A Expired - Lifetime EP0610100B1 (de) 1993-02-05 1994-02-07 Schale zum Lagern und Stapeln von Gegenständen

Country Status (5)

Country Link
EP (1) EP0610100B1 (de)
AT (1) ATE152994T1 (de)
DE (1) DE69403096T2 (de)
ES (1) ES2104269T3 (de)
GB (1) GB9302248D0 (de)

Cited By (4)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
FR2873660A1 (fr) * 2004-08-02 2006-02-03 Saint Louis Sucre Sa Sa Plateau intercalaire de manutention pour empiler des conditionnements en couches
EP2266890A1 (de) * 2009-06-24 2010-12-29 Rehrig Pacific Company Flaschenträger
WO2011073406A1 (en) * 2009-12-17 2011-06-23 Ds Smith Plastics Limited Tray for packaging bottles in superposed layers
EP3967624A1 (de) * 2020-09-11 2022-03-16 A. Raymond et Cie Lieferplatte und verpackungssystem für medizinische elemente

Citations (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
DE7135286U (de) * 1971-09-16 1972-01-13 Deutsche Solvay-Werke Gmbh Transportplatte für Flaschen oder dgl. Behälter
GB2079256A (en) * 1980-07-11 1982-01-20 Elopak As Separator Tray
EP0335730A2 (de) * 1988-03-31 1989-10-04 The Coca-Cola Company Schausystem
EP0521705A1 (de) * 1991-07-02 1993-01-07 Formold Limited Stapeln von Gegenständen zur Lagerung und/oder zum Transit
FR2679878A1 (fr) * 1991-07-31 1993-02-05 Saint Gobain Emballage Plateaux de palettisation.

Family Cites Families (1)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
GB1327996A (en) * 1971-08-19 1973-08-22 Dale Ltd John Half crate

Patent Citations (5)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
DE7135286U (de) * 1971-09-16 1972-01-13 Deutsche Solvay-Werke Gmbh Transportplatte für Flaschen oder dgl. Behälter
GB2079256A (en) * 1980-07-11 1982-01-20 Elopak As Separator Tray
EP0335730A2 (de) * 1988-03-31 1989-10-04 The Coca-Cola Company Schausystem
EP0521705A1 (de) * 1991-07-02 1993-01-07 Formold Limited Stapeln von Gegenständen zur Lagerung und/oder zum Transit
FR2679878A1 (fr) * 1991-07-31 1993-02-05 Saint Gobain Emballage Plateaux de palettisation.

Cited By (6)

* Cited by examiner, † Cited by third party
Publication number Priority date Publication date Assignee Title
FR2873660A1 (fr) * 2004-08-02 2006-02-03 Saint Louis Sucre Sa Sa Plateau intercalaire de manutention pour empiler des conditionnements en couches
EP1623934A1 (de) * 2004-08-02 2006-02-08 Saint-Louis Sucre S.A. Zwischenlagenplatte zur Handhabung und Stapeln von Behältern in Schichten
EP2266890A1 (de) * 2009-06-24 2010-12-29 Rehrig Pacific Company Flaschenträger
WO2011073406A1 (en) * 2009-12-17 2011-06-23 Ds Smith Plastics Limited Tray for packaging bottles in superposed layers
EP3967624A1 (de) * 2020-09-11 2022-03-16 A. Raymond et Cie Lieferplatte und verpackungssystem für medizinische elemente
FR3114081A1 (fr) * 2020-09-11 2022-03-18 A. Raymond Et Cie Plateau de livraison et systeme d’emballage d’elements medicaux

Also Published As

Publication number Publication date
ES2104269T3 (es) 1997-10-01
DE69403096D1 (de) 1997-06-19
EP0610100B1 (de) 1997-05-14
ATE152994T1 (de) 1997-05-15
DE69403096T2 (de) 1997-11-13
GB9302248D0 (en) 1993-03-24

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