JPH0339902B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a collapsible container for transporting cargo.

When transporting cargo from one area to another in a remote area, railway vehicles, large trucks, ships, etc. carry large cube-shaped containers, store the desired cargo in this container, and transport the cargo all at once. do,
Delivered safely to the desired area.

Since this container has a cubic shape,
Even when loaded onto a vehicle, containers can be placed neatly side by side without leaving any gaps, so there is no wasted dead space.On the other hand, since a large number of materials can be neatly stored inside the container, there is no risk of damage to the materials. , the desired safe transportation can be carried out.

However, for example, when export goods are sent from Japan to a foreign country by ship, but there are no imported goods from foreign countries, or when shipping materials to a remote area within the country, orders for land transport in that remote area may not be accepted. If not, the used container will have to be taken home empty.

In such a case, since the volume of the container is large, the space occupied on the ship, truck, or vehicle that accommodates it becomes large, and there is the problem that it is economically disadvantageous, such as extra freight charges for transporting the container. It was hot.

For this reason, conventional containers have been folded to reduce their volume, for example,
A folding container disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 57-175549 has been developed.

These containers can be folded by bending the front and back plates inward, stacking the left and right side plates on top of the bottom plate, and when the front and back plates are folded, the top plate descends and stacks on the bottom plate. The structure is such that the thickness is reduced.

However, this structure in which the left and right side plates are folded over the bottom plate has the following problems.

The left and right side panels are extremely heavy because they consist of a door frame and two double doors that can be opened and closed within the frame.

A large operating force is required to fold or raise the heavy side plate, and the operability is poor. In particular, when raising a side panel that has been folded, two people are required: one to raise the side panel from inside the container, and the other to lock the folded side panel from the outside. It requires a large push-up force to raise the face plate, so only strong people can do the work.

There are cases where the side panels are erected using mechanical force without manual intervention, but in this case, winches, wires, hooking fittings, etc. with strong tensile strength are required, and the wires cannot be hooked to the side panels. Work efficiency is very poor because the winch has to be activated each time.

Even if the side plate is raised, if it is not locked, it will fall under its own weight, which is very dangerous. Providing a locking mechanism will complicate the structure and make locking and unlocking operations troublesome.

When the side panels are folded, they are folded down via the hinges, but if the side panels are folded down by their own weight, the impact on the bottom panel is large, which is dangerous and may cause damage to the container itself.
In order to solve this problem, mechanical force may be used to gradually collapse the blade, but in this case, a separate mechanical device is required and the workability becomes worse.

When raising or lowering the side plate using mechanical force, the worker must hook a wire or the like onto a hook on the side plate, which is extremely dangerous.

When the side panel is raised, seals are required between the container frame and the outer periphery of the side panel and between the door frame and the door itself to maintain airtightness, but the number of seals is extremely large. will increase in number.

As mentioned above, the side plate is made up of the door frame, the double door, the seal, the lock mechanism, etc., so it has a large number of parts and is difficult to process, leading to an increase in costs.

When opening the container, the double door is extended to the outside, which limits the space available, making it difficult to open the container properly in a narrow space.

Therefore, the object of the present invention is to provide a foldable and lightweight product that is light in weight, easy to open and close, can be operated by one person, is safe to open and close, has a small number of parts, is easy to manufacture, and can reduce costs. It is to provide a container.

In order to achieve this objective, the structure of the present invention consists of a top plate, a bottom plate, a front plate, a back plate, and two side plates.
In a collapsible container in which the upper and lower parts of the front plate and the back plate are hingedly connected to the top plate and the bottom plate, respectively, and the center of the front plate and the back plate is configured to be bendable via a hinge member, the above side The face plate is configured as a shutter for opening and closing the container, and this shutter is made up of a plurality of plate bodies that are bently connected. A shutter case containing a spring is provided at the lower part of the top plate, and the shutter is opened via the spring. The shutter is always biased in the direction of the shutter case so that the shutter is housed in the shutter case when folded.

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below based on the drawings.

FIGS. 1 to 6 show one embodiment of this.

1 is the top plate of the container body, which is made of iron plate etc.
At the four corners of the upper surface of this, hanging fixtures 2 are fixed for hanging by a crane or the like. For example, a rectangular cylindrical reinforcing frame 3 is fixed to the four corners of the top plate 1 by welding. 4 is the bottom plate of the container body, and similar reinforcing frames 5 are also provided at the four corners of this bottom plate 4.
is fixed. Leg members 6 are fixed to the four corners of the lower surface of the bottom plate 4 by welding. Also,
Between these two upper and lower reinforcing frames 3 and 5, two pillars 7 are attached to each of the front side and the back side. The struts 7 each consist of two strut members 7a and 7b, and one end of these strut members 7a and 7b are pivotally connected to each other by a hinge member 8 so as to be able to bend in the front and back direction, and the strut members 7a,
The other end of 7b is pivotally connected to the bracket 9 on the side of the reinforcing frames 3 and 5 by a pin 9a serving as a hinge so as to be rotatable in the front-rear direction.
In addition, the left and right of these upper and lower support members 7a, 7b are connected by blocking plates 10, 11, and each of these blocking plates 10, 1 on the front and back sides
1 forms the front plate and back plate of the container body. The left and right side plates constitute a shutter 24. However, it is also possible to use only one side plate as a shutter.

Each of the blocking plates 10 and 1 forming the front plate and the back plate
1 is pushed inward near the hinge member 8 and rotated, these are folded in while rotating around the pin 9a, and finally the top plate 1 is folded onto the bottom plate 4. In this way, the folding operation of the container is extremely easy, and the space occupied after folding is reduced.
This makes transportation easier.

Reference numeral 21 denotes a support frame plate attached to the lower part of the reinforcing frame 3 on all four sides, and a top plate 1 is attached to the left and right sides of this support frame plate.
A pair of shutter cases 22 are installed in the front and rear directions corresponding to the lower part of the winding shaft 2.
A shutter 24 for opening and closing the container is wrapped around the container 3. The shutter 24 is composed of a plurality of plate bodies that are bently connected via a hinge member, and is biased in a certain rotational direction by a spring (not shown) attached to the winding shaft 23. While maintaining a balance with the weight of the machine, manual operation can be performed smoothly.

Further, a guide rail 25 having a U-shaped cross section is provided integrally or separately on each opposing surface of the front and rear support members 7a and 7b, and this guide rail 25
Both ends of the shutter 24 can be smoothly moved up and down inside. Moreover, as shown in FIG. 6, this guide rail 25 has an opening edge curved inwardly,
The packing 27 is inserted into this curved portion 26,
By configuring the shutter 24 to be raised and lowered so as to be in contact with the packing 27, the airtightness inside the container can be improved.

Figures 5, 7 and 8 show support members 7a and 7.
This figure shows the details of the hinge connection in Fig. b. According to this, one end of each of the strut members 7a, 7b is rotatably supported around a pin 9a suspended on the bracket 9, and the other end of each of the strut members 7a, 7b is attached to two opposing hinge members 8. Suspended pin 8a,
It is configured to be rotatably supported by 8b.

Therefore, when folding the container, first manually pull up the shutter 24 upward along the guide rail 25, and then move the shutter 24 onto the winding shaft 25.
After winding it up around the hinge member 8, each support member 7a, 7b is folded into a dogleg shape around the pins 8a, 8b on the hinge member 8, and the top plate 1 is lowered as shown in FIG. And if you continue this folding operation,
As shown in FIG. 5, the front and rear closing plates 10 and 11, the top plate 1, and the bottom plate 5 are folded so as to overlap each other,
The volume of the container can be reduced.

9, 10 and 11 show other embodiments of the invention. This differs only in the elevating and lowering structure of the shutter, and the folding structure of the other closing plates 10 and 11 is exactly the same as in the above embodiment. That is, 28 is a shutter in which a plurality of plates 28a having a somewhat large width are vertically arranged in a bendable manner via a hinge member, etc., and these plates are connected to each other so as to be rotatable, and the shutter 28 is At the top,
One end of a coil spring 30 housed inside the shutter case 22 is connected via a hanging wire 29, and the other end of the coil spring 30 is fixed to a stop pin 31 inside the shutter case 22, so that the entire shutter 28 is always kept in the shutter case. It is biased in the direction of accommodation in 22. coil spring 30
The mounting relationship is designed such that the entire shutter 28 can be accommodated within the shutter case 22 when the shutter 28 is compressed. When the shutters 28 are lowered and form both side walls of the container, the shutters 28
A locking tool provided at the lower end of the reinforcing frame 5 is adapted to be engaged with a fixing member fixed to the reinforcing frame 5. Furthermore, as shown in FIG. 11, guide rollers 33 are rotatably attached to both ends of the plate 28a constituting the shutter 28 via brackets 32, and the guide rollers 33 are connected to the support members 7a, 7b and It smoothly rolls within the guide rail 34, which is divided into two halves provided along the shutter case 22, thereby allowing the shutter 28 to move up and down smoothly. Note that 35 is a guide wheel that guides the hanging wire. The folding of the container in this embodiment is also carried out in the same manner as described above.

FIGS. 12 to 17 show still other embodiments of the present invention. Even in this embodiment, the closing plate 1
The folding structure of Nos. 0 and 11 is the same as in the above embodiment, but the elevating structure of the shutter is different.
In the figure, reference numeral 36 denotes a shutter made by bendably connecting a plurality of plate bodies 39 consisting of a rectangular cylindrical body 37 and track plates 38 extending downwardly from the lower part of the cylindrical body 37. One end of a connecting rod 41 is rotatably supported by a pin 42 on a bracket 40 protruding from the lower part of each cylinder 37, and the other end of this connecting rod 41 is connected to another adjacent cylinder at the lower part. 37A and does not come off from this cylindrical body 37A.
3, and its connecting rod 41 is slidably provided within the cylindrical body 37A. 38A is a track plate connected to another cylindrical body 37A, 40A is a bracket, and 41A is a link. Brackets are provided protruding inside the cylinder bodies 37, 37A, and the shaft 4 is suspended from these brackets.
Guide rollers 46, 46A are rotatably attached to 5, 45A. Further, the guide rollers 46, 46A are designed to roll along substantially L-shaped guide rails 47 which are provided on each of the support members 7a, 7b so as to be freely splittable, as shown in FIG. 14. Further, one end of a coil spring 49 is fixed to the lowermost cylindrical body 37 via a hanging wire 48, and the other end of this coil spring 49 is fixed to a stop pin 50 in the shutter case 22 provided at the bottom of the top plate 1. It is worn. This coil spring 49 always biases the shutter 36 in the direction of drawing it into the shutter case 22, so that the shutter 36
When the shutter 36 is lowered to form the side wall of the container, a locking tool provided at the lower end of the shutter 36 is locked to a fixing member fixed to the reinforcing frame 5.

In this shutter elevating structure, the shutter 36 is pulled into the shutter case 22 by the contraction force of the coil spring 49, as in the case of the above embodiment, but when the above-mentioned locking tool is removed from the fixing member, The lowermost cylindrical body 37 is lifted upward by the contraction force of the coil spring 49, and the upper cylindrical body 37 is sequentially compressed and superimposed on the adjacent lower cylindrical body 37, as shown in FIG. It is lifted upward and housed in the shutter case 22. At this time, since the shutter 28 is compressed so that the cylindrical body 37 overlaps, the overall length is shortened, and even if the space of the shutter case is small, it can all be stored within the shutter case. Next, by folding the support members 7a and 7b into a dogleg shape around the hinge member 8 and lowering the top plate 1, the volume of the container is reduced in the same way as explained in FIG. This makes it possible to reduce the size and reduce the space occupied during transportation.

As described above, according to the present invention, the following unique effects can be obtained. That is, the container can be opened and closed simply by moving the shutter up and down, making the opening and closing operations extremely easy.

When the container is opened after storing the shutter, the shutter does not protrude to the outside, so the container can be opened and closed even in a narrow space.

The shutter can be opened and closed by a single worker and does not require a large amount of operating force, nor does it require the mechanical power of a winch or the like to open and close.

The shutter does not fall over, so it is safe when opening and closing.

No impact is generated when the shutter is opened or closed, and the container will not be damaged.

Since the shutter is made of a single plate, it is airtight in itself, and only needs to be provided with a seal around the outer periphery of the shutter.

The structure is simple, the number of parts is small, and manufacturing is easy, reducing costs.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a partially cutaway perspective view showing an embodiment of the container according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a partially front sectional view, FIG. 3 is a front view, FIG. 4 is a side view, and FIG. The figure is also a side view of the folded state, No. 6
The figure is a cross-sectional plan view of the guide rail section, FIG. 7 is an exploded perspective view showing the hinge joint of the support column, FIG. 8 is a perspective view of the partially folded state, and FIG. 9 is a further example of another embodiment. front view, No. 10
11 is a cross-sectional plan view of the guide rail section, FIG. 12 is a front view of another embodiment, FIG. 13 is a side view, and FIG. 14 is a perspective view of the main parts. , FIG. 15 is a cross-sectional plan view of the guide rail section, and FIGS. 16 and 17 are front views of the main parts showing the shutter in the ascending and descending state. 1... Top plate, 4... Bottom plate, 8... Hinge member,
10, 11... two front plates and a back plate, 12,
24, 28, 36... Shutter, 15... Traction spring, 22... Shutter case, 30, 4
9...Coil spring.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Consisting of a top plate, a bottom plate, a front plate, a back plate, and two side plates, the upper and lower parts of the front plate and the back plate are hinged to the top plate and the bottom plate, respectively, and the front plate and the back plate are connected to each other by hinges. In a collapsible container in which the center of the face plate is configured to be bendable via a hinge member, the side plate is configured as a shutter for opening and closing the container, and this shutter is composed of a plurality of plate bodies that are bently connected. A shutter case containing a spring is provided at the bottom of the top plate, and the shutter is always biased in the direction of the shutter case via the spring, so that the shutter is stored in the shutter case when folded. A collapsible container. 2. The collapsible container according to claim 1, wherein the shutter comprises a plurality of plate bodies connected via a hinge member. 3. A collapsible container according to claim 1, wherein the shutter is wound and housed in a shutter case provided on the top plate side via a spring. 4. The collapsible container according to claim 1, wherein the shutter is an extendable type in which a plurality of plates are connected in the vertical direction. 5. The foldable shutter according to claim 1, wherein the shutter is composed of a plurality of plates connected in the vertical direction, and the lowermost one of the plates is towed by a coil spring. container.