US20060130711A1

US20060130711A1 - Recyclable pallet

Info

Publication number: US20060130711A1
Application number: US11/111,053
Authority: US
Inventors: Tsung-Tsan Lin
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2004-12-16
Filing date: 2005-04-22
Publication date: 2006-06-22
Also published as: JP3113098U; AU2005100338A4

Abstract

The recyclable and environment-friendly pallet includes a supporting surface, a landing section and a concave space for accommodating the fork for lifting. The pallet is preformed by plastic blowing, and a hollow section is formed and then injected by air, serving the purpose of support by air pressure. Based on this innovative structure of hollow plastic pallet, the pallets can be protected against decay or insect pest, and used to replace the existing wooden and plastic pallets owing to its simple and low-cost manufacturing and recycling advantages for environmental protection.

Description

RELATED U.S. APPLICATIONS

Not applicable.

STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT

Not applicable.

REFERENCE TO MICROFICHE APPENDIX

Not applicable.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates generally to a pallet, and more particularly to an innovative one that is designed with a hollow section by means of plastic blowing, making it possible for gas injection within the hollow section to offer desirable support by air pressure.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Generally, the so-called pallets are referred to sheet materials supporting the goods, whereby the goods are stacked on the supporting surface of the pallet, and a limited space is reserved at the bottom of pallet to accommodate the fork for lifting. In this way, the pallet can be controlled via mechanical or manual forklift to lift and handle the stacked goods to thereby save the manual work and promote the productivity. Among existing pallets about 95% are made of wood boards in combination with battens, with a structural strength about 700˜3000 kg. Constructed of low-grade wooden materials, the pallet features cost-effectiveness, simple manufacturing and ease of mass production. Therefore, the wooden pallets have not been replaced by other materials or manufacturing modes currently. However, it can be found from the wide range of applications that, this wooden pallet has the following disadvantages:
1. Environmental protection: the wooden pallet, with a single source from the forest, belongs to consumptive products, thus leading to a rising consumption, namely indicating an increased speed of loss for the forest on the earth. However, the forest plays an important role of adjusting the weather and maintaining the living environment for the human beings. Accordingly, it would be desirable for the industry to provide a structure that can replace the wooden pallets to lower wood consumption greatly.
2. Pathogen contamination: the wooden materials not subjecting to surface processing are vulnerable to insect pest and germ during the process decay. Currently, the wooden pallet are made of wooden raw materials without further surface processing. So, the insects and germs will likely be widely spread coupling with the domestic shipping or export of goods along with the wooden pallets. This will pose a serious threat to the quality of foodstuff or drugs, or even leading to catastrophic ecological or infectious epidemic problems. For this reason, many countries with strict sanitary standards demand for the certificates proving that sterilization or fumigation treatment has been carried out on the imported wooden pallets. This means an increased cost of sterilization or fumigation treatment for the practitioners in this industry.
3. Structural strength: the wooden pallets are made of wooden materials, with various units fixed securely by means of iron nails. In fact, the fixing state is rather rough and instable, possibly leading to loosening and damage during the handling. Paper cardboard pallet has been introduced in the recent years, which uses recycled kraft paper and pasted in layers like corrugated cardboard cases. Although it is usable, it is insufficient in moisture-proof, water-proof, and lacking supporting strength; thus, making the usage in some areas and on some products limited, and making it impossible to replace the wooden pallet. Another type of pallets is made with compressed sawdust or scrap lumber. It shares the same problem with wooden pallets, and is high in cost; thus, it is not widely used and unable to replace the wooden pallets.
4. Weight: the finished wooden pallet is very cumbersome due to the nature of wooden materials (approx. 20˜30 kg). Also, considering the coarse structure of unpolished surface, they are easy to be wetted by some water or other liquids, resulting an increased weight from ⅓ to one fold. In addition, the wooden pallet is generally available in a size of 120×100×20 cm (length, width and height), so the bigger volume is an important factor leading to a sharp rise of shipping cost.
5. Waste: once upon completion of unloading the goods, the wooden pallet made of lower-grade wooden materials has little remaining value due to impossibility of recycling for furniture and other wooden products. If the customers are intended to recycle these wooden pallets, a higher recycling cost and time-consuming effort shall be required. Therefore, the wooden pallets are burnt down as fuels according to the existing work practice. Generally, some environmental protection agencies are entrusted to handle this issue, with the expenses borne by the owners of the wooden pallets. To a global context, the number of wooden pallets burnt down totals hundreds of billions, showing a startling waste of resources. Furthermore, numerous of wasted wooden pallets to be processed around the world have led to environmental pollution to different extents.
Although a plastic injection pallet was marketed about two decades ago, the solid structure from plastic injection demanded for a big number of plastics, with its price higher than 4˜10 times of wooden pallet. Additionally, a higher degree of hardness for the plastics shall be required to ensure the load strength, but the hard and fragile structure of entire pallet is vulnerable to breakage due to external collusion. So, these plastic injection pallets are generally applied for warehousing, rather than one-time consumption during freight handling. At present, the plastic pallets register only a 3% market share of the wooden pallets, showing a poor economic efficiency, without mentioning possible replacement of wooden pallets.
Accordingly, in order to solve the problems of the conventional wooden and plastic injection pallets when they are used, it would be desirable for the industry to provide a low-cost, lightweight, recyclable and environment-friendly utility model.
Above all, the inventor elaborately designed and tested the pallet structure on the basis of his rich experience in product development and design, to thereby present the invention finally.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The improvements brought about by this invention are as follow:
1. Based on this innovative structure of pallet preformed through plastic blowing, the waste can be recycled and fabricated into other plastic products, yielding a remaining value far more than the conventional wooden pallets. And, numerous of trees are thus protected against chopping to satisfy the demanding environmental protection.
2. The pallet of the present invention is free from insect pest and germ via the help of plastic blowing, and antibacterial agents can be added for an enhanced effect depending on the requirement of the customers (this cannot be achieved by wooden pallets). Thus, it is optimally suited for foodstuff and medicines, etc. Moreover, no sterilization or fumigation treatment is required during import and export, leading to declined shipping cost.
3. As the pallets of the present invention are integrally preformed through plastic blowing, it eliminates the need of assembly of any component for a reliable strength. In conjunction with the internal support of air pressure, the pallet features a stronger resistance to collision and vibration as well as a higher degree of tenacity not owned by the solid plastic injection pallet.
4. Thanks to the hollow structure of the pallet via the assistance of plastic blowing, the amount of required plastic can be reduced by about 65% of conventional solid plastic pallet. So, the cost and price of plastic pallet can be remarkably reduced similar to that of wooden pallet. Meanwhile, it offers a much lightweight than the latter one, thus yielding a bigger economic efficiency by reducing greatly the shipping cost.
5. This pallet of the present invention can be preformed by a special blow-molding machine, and easily put into mass production, presenting an easier quality control and higher degree of precision than wooden pallet.
6. Thanks to the combined structural design that the supporting surface and landing section of the panel can be dismantled for separate storage, shipping and packaging, this can help minimize the materials and cost.
However, even though the preferred embodiments have been set forth in the foregoing description, the disclosure is illustrative only, but does not limit the present invention, and changes may be made in detail within the principles of the invention to the full extent indicated by the broad general meaning of the terms in which the appended claims are expressed.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a perspective view of the preferred embodiment present invention at a bird's eye view.
FIG. 2 shows a perspective view of the preferred embodiment of the present invention at an upward view.
FIG. 3 shows a local vertical cutaway view of the preferred embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 4 shows another perspective view of the preferred embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 5 shows another perspective view of the preferred embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 6 shows a perspective view of the assembled invention.
FIG. 7 shows a local assembled cutaway view of FIG. 6.
FIG. 8 shows another perspective view of the preferred embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The features and the advantages of the present invention will be more readily understood upon a thoughtful deliberation of the following detailed description of a preferred embodiment of the present invention with reference to the accompanying drawings.
As shown in FIGS. 1-3, a recyclable pallet 10 embodied in the present invention comprises:
a pallet 10, which includes a supporting surface 11, a landing section 12 opposite to the supporting surface 11 and a concave space 13 between the supporting surface 11 and landing section 12 for accommodating the fork for lifting. Wherein said pallet 10 is made of plastic materials by means of plastic blowing, and a hollow section 14 (as shown in FIG. 3) is formed and then injected by air A of proper pressure. This can help the plastic wall in supporting the goods based on non-pressed air method.
Wherein, the hollow section 14 of the pallet 10 can be designed with a local or global configuration.
Wherein, a through hole 15 is additionally placed at a preset location of the pallet 10, and a tubular supporting wall 16 is arranged where the through hole 15 crosses the hollow section 14. Based on the tubular supporting wall, a rib-like support force can be generated for an enhanced structure of pallet 10.
Wherein, the supporting surface 11 and landing section 12 of the pallet 10 can be preformed by means of plastic blowing (as shown in FIGS. 1 and 2). Also, as shown in FIG. 4, the supporting surface 11B and landing section 12B of the pallet 10B can be performed by means of individual plastic blowing and subsequently combined (e.g. by a plug bush of hole and column). Thanks to the structure that the panel (supporting surface) and column (landing section) of the pallet 10B can be dismantled for separate storage, shipping and packaging, this can help minimize the materials and cost.
Wherein, the pallet's supporting surface of the present invention can be designed with both a single-sided pattern plate (as shown in FIGS. 1-4) and double-sided supporting surface 11C 11D for the pallet 10C as shown in FIG. 5. When one supporting surface 11C faces upwards, the other one 11D acts as a landing section.
Wherein, FIGS. 6 and 7 show another example of structure for a composite design of the pallet of the present invention. In this example, the supporting surface 11E of the pallet 10D has a hollow section 14 by means of hollow plastic blowing, and the landing section 12B is designed with several cylinder-like components in radial arrangement. Also, it may be internally offered with a hollow section. The landing section 12B is constructed of metal materials or preformed by plastic blowing (namely, not limited to hollow plastic blowing). Besides, bolt holes 21 and through holes 22 are mounted oppositely between landing section 12B and supporting surface 11E, thus offering a combined positioning via screw bolt 23. Additionally, this structure is suitable for double-sided supporting surface 11E (as shown in FIGS. 6 and 7) or single-sided supporting surface. Thanks to the structure that the supporting surface 11E and landing section 12B of the panel can be dismantled and superposed for separate storage, shipping and packaging, this can help minimize the materials and cost.
FIG. 8 shows another example of structure for a composite design of the pallet of the present invention. In this example, the supporting face 11F and landing section 12C of the pallet 10E form a one-piece hollow board by means of hollow blowing. A through hole 15 is placed at a preset location for reinforced supporting. Each landing section 12D forms uneven surface with the supporting surface 11F with the concave surface.

Claims

1. A recyclable and environment-friendly pallet comprising:

a supporting surface;

a landing section opposite to said supporting surface; and

a concave space between the supporting surface and landing section, accommodating a fork for lifting, wherein said supporting surface and landing section are comprised of thermoplastic materials formed by plastic blowing of a preset mold, offering a structure of a hollow section.

2. A recyclable pallet as defined in claim 1, wherein said hollow section is charged and pressurized by air, forming a supporting force via air pressure.

3. A recyclable pallet as defined in claim 1, wherein said supporting surface and landing section are preformed by plastic blowing, a surface section being preformed by plastic blowing and a leading section being preformed by plastic injection or other materials then subsequent combined.

4. A recyclable pallet as defined in claim 1, wherein said supporting surface is formed by hollow plastic blowing, the landing section being formed by plastic injection or assembled by semi-finished metal materials.