WO1991019648A2

WO1991019648A2 - Carrier for supporting goods

Info

Publication number: WO1991019648A2
Application number: PCT/NL1991/000097
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jacobus Maria Snoeijers
Original assignee: Jacobus Maria Snoeijers
Priority date: 1990-06-13
Filing date: 1991-06-13
Publication date: 1991-12-26
Also published as: WO1991019648A3; NL9001335A

Abstract

A carrier for supporting goods comprises one or a plurality of first support means (2) forming a first support plane, and a plurality of regularly spaced parallel second support means (3) facing away from the first support plane and projecting from the first support means to form a second support plane. Such a carrier can be used as a pallet if the first support plane is turned upwardly and may serve as a floor element in a transport means if the second support plane is turned upwardly.

Description

Carrier for supporting goods.

The invention relates to a carrier for supporting goods.

The most widely known embodiment of such a carrier is the pallet mainly serving to support piece goods during their transport. These pallets are utilised in several standardised embodiments. The most widely spread pallet is made of wood and consists of two parallel walls formed by boards and being spaced from each other by blocks. This pallet is constructed very robust so that heavy loads can be resisted, particularly also when the loaded pallet is lifted by the two teeth of a forklift truck or the like. A disadvantage thereof is that the pallets are relatively expensive and also heavy. Furthermore the height of the pallet is substantial thereby losing useful loading space in the vessels, vehicles or planes used for the transport.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a carrier for supporting goods which removes the disadvantages mentioned above and which is suited for further uses.

To obtain this object the present invention proposes a carrier for carrying goods, comprising one or a plurality of first support means forming a first support plane and a plura¬ lity of regularly spaced parallel second support means facing away from the first support plane and projecting from the first support means to form a second support plane. This simply constructed carrier according to the in¬ vention may be made cheap,*light and flat thereby removing the disadvantages of the known pallets. It is necessary, however, when lifting and displacing the carrier, to support it with a special forklift truck or the like having a greater number of teeth than the usual two, so that a tooth can be inserted be¬ tween' all second support means of the carrier. In this manner the carrier is supported over a greater part of its surface so that the carrier may have a smaller resistance to bending.

When the carrier is used as pallet, the second sup- port means are directed downwardly and the goods rest on the first support plane formed by the first support means. The carrier may then be lifted by a forklift truck by inserting the teeth thereof into the spaces between the second support means, which stand on the ground for example, and to lift the carrier with its load subsequently.

A favourable pallet-use of the carrier according to the invention is the use thereof as "platform" in the cargo hold of fishing vessels. Due to the described disadvantages of the known pallets these are not used there and the containers containing fish are just stacked onto the flooring of the car¬ go hold. The consequence thereof is that when the fishing ves¬ sel is unloaded the fish containers are manually taking out of the cargo hold and disposed on a hoistable transport means one by one. The carriers according to the invention do not have the disadvantages of the known pallet and may be positioned as very thin platforms onto the flooring of the cargo hold there¬ by losing hardly any height in the relatively low cargo hold. Subsequent to the arrival in the harbour, the carriers and the fish containers stacked thereon may be driven out of the cargo hold by a special forklift device and may then be hoisted to the quay. This results into a much more efficient unloading operation for the fishing vessel. A very special completely new use of the carrier ac¬ cording to the invention is that in which the carrier is used upside down, that is with the second support means facing up¬ wardly. In this manner a plurality of carriers may be used to build up a flooring or bottom of a transport means on behalf of the pallet-free transport of piece goods. In this case a unit of piece goods is supported on the second support plane of the carrier formed by the second support means, and below the lower piece goods of the unit a free space remains between the second support means to enable the insertion or removal of the teeth of a forklift truck so that a unit of piece goods can be placed on the floor and be lifted from the floor again without any problem.

With the carriers according to the invention the flooring of an existing transport means, such as a vehicle, vessel or plane or also a container or the like may be adapted for the pallet-free transport of piece goods and may be re¬ stored to its original state as easy as that. These transport means thus have a wide range of applications.

The invention will hereafter be elucidated with refe¬ rence to the drawing schematically showing embodiments of the carrier according to the invention and a number of uses there- of by way of example.

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of a first embodiment of the carrier for supporting goods according to the invention.

Fig. 2 is a view corresponding to that of fig. 1, but wherein the carrier of fig. 1 is shown upside down. Fig. 3 shows in a perspective view an example of a use of the carrier according to the invention as pallet, on a reduced scale.

Fig. 4 shows in a view similar to that of fig. 3 a further example of a use of the carrier according to the in- vention, wherein a flooring of a transport means is construc¬ ted of a plurality of carriers in a position of fig. 2.

Fig. 5 is a plan view of a second examplary embodi¬ ment of the carrier according to the invention.

Fig. 6 is a sectional view taken along the line VI-VI of fig. 5.

Fig. 1 and 2 show a first embodiment of a carrier 1 according to the present invention. This carrier 1 in this embodiment is fully made out of wood and includes a plurality of spaced parallel first support means 2 consisting of boards and together forming a first support plane. In this case the width of the spacing between the first support means 2 is lar¬ ger than the width of the first support means 2 themselves which is done to minimise the weight. Of course it is also possible to position the first support means 2 in abutting relationship without spacing or to make them integral.

The carrier 1 further comprises a plurality of second support means 3 extending perpendicularly to the first support means 2 and together forming a second support plane of the carrier. These second support means 3 consist of thin beams having a substantially rectangular transverse section. The first and second support means 2, 3 are interconnected by me¬ ans of connecting means, such as for example nails 4, in order to form a grid or cross bond. The parallel second support me¬ ans 3 are evenly distributed along the respective dimension of the carrier 1 and leave open between them spacings 5 in order to allow the insertion of the teeth 6 (see fig. 3) of a speci- al forklift device, such as a forklift truck. The height of the used second support means 3 will preferably be kept as small as possible to mimimise the total height of the carrier 1 , but should of course be sufficient to permit the insertion of the teeth 6 of the forklift device 7. The minimum height of the second support means 3 is consequently bound by the height of the teeth 6 of the forklift device 7. Since the carrier 1 is arranged such that the teeth 6 of the forklift device 7 can support it in a distribution over the whole surface, the re¬ sistance to bending or the bending strength, respectively, of the carrier 1, in particular about a line parallel^"to the se¬ cond support means 3, should only be small in relation to the situation of a usual pallet which is lifted by a forklift de¬ vice having only two .teeth. As a result thereof the thickness, especially of the first support means 2 can be kept small, so that the use of the carrier 1 in a cargo hold results in a loss of only little useful loading space. Preferably the total height of the carrier 1 is smaller than 7%, and in particular smaller than 5% of the largest dimension of the carrier l. In fig. 1, the carrier 1 is shown in a position in which it may serve as a pallet as is illustrated in fig. 3. In fig. 3, there is placed on the carrier 1 a unit of piece goods 8, in this case consisting of boxes or trays stacked into a number of columns, but may equally consist of sacks or the like. In this mode of use the carrier 1 is handled similar to the handling of the generally known pallet only with that dif¬ ference that in principle the carrier 1 can only be handled with a special forklift device 7 having a greater number of teeth than two. The distribution of the teeth 6 of the fork¬ lift device 7 and the distribution of the second support means 3 of the carrier 1 should of course be adapted to each other. In most cases the number of second support means will be six at least. In fig. 2 and 4 the carrier 1 is shown upside down so that the second support means 3 face upwardly and together form an interrupted support face for piece goods. In this po¬ sition of the carrier 1 it may be used to build up a flooring 9 of a transport means 10 which is indicated very schematical¬ ly in fig. 4 and which may consist for example of a ship, a truck, a railroad van, but also of a container or the like.

With such flooring 9 in the transport means 10 there is enabled a pallet-free transport of units of piece goods 8, since below the lower piece goods of the unit, which rest on the support plane formed by the second support means, the spacings 5 between these second support means remain free for introduction of the teeth 6 of the forklift device 7. Conse¬ quently, the teeth 6 may be removed from under the piece goods positioned on the second support means 3 and are allowed to be introduced again to remove the piece goods from the^" cargo hold of the transport means 10.

In fig. 4, the flooring 9 of the transport means 10 is made of six abutting carriers 1, but of course any number of carriers 1 is possible dependent on the size of the flooring 9. It is of course also possible to freely select the dimension of the carriers l, particularly in the case in which the carriers 1 should be positioned or arranged such that the second support means 3 should be equally spaced along the whole length of the flooring 9. In fig. 4 this is not the case since every two adjacent carriers 1 abut with their outer se¬ cond support means 3, but with the carrier 1 according to fig. 1 and 2 an even distribution could nevertheless be obtained by keeping a spacing between adjacent carriers l corresponding to the width of the spacing 5. The carriers 1 may or may not be connected with the underlying support of the transport means 10, wherein it should only be ensured that the carriers l can not slide with respect to the transport means 10.

Fig. 5 and 6 show a second embodiment of the carrier for supporting the goods according to the invention, which is integrally made of plastic. In this embodiment by way of exam¬ ple the first support plane is formed by a single plate-shaped support means 2 and the second support means 3 consist of series of projections 11. The mutual distances between all projections 11 are equal, so that the second support means 3 can be imagined in both lateral directions. As a result there- of, the teeth of the forklift truck may be inserted between the projections 11 of the carrier 1 from all sides. In the position of fig. 6 the projections 11 have the shape of a re¬ versed frustum with a circular horizontal section. Consequent¬ ly, the teeth of the forklift truck may easily be inserted be- tween the projections 11 and are guided by them into the right position.

The projections 11 are hollow and the holes 12 provi¬ ded therefor also extend through the plate-shaped"first sup¬ port means 2 so that the holes 12 extend the total height of the carrier 1. At the lower edge of the projections 11 are formed four perpendicularly positioned lateral recesses 13, and in the support plane of the plate-shaped first support means 2 being provided substantially semi-circular slots 14 between each two holes 12 and between the holes and the side edge of the carrier 1. These recesses 13 and slots 14 permit air to circulate at the lower side along the goods supported by the carrier 1. This is particularly important in freezing or refrigerated chambers where, due to these measurements, also the lower side of the goods carried by the carrier 1 are properly cooled.

Also in this embodiment the height of the second sup¬ port means 3, in this case consisting of projections 11, is a few times the height or thickness of the plate-shaped first support means 2, while the total height of the carrier 1 is preferably smaller than 5% of the greatest dimension of this carrier 1.

As will be clear from the foregoing the present in¬ vention provides a carrier for supporting goods, in particular piece goods, which has a very simple construction, occupies only little space in vertical direction and allows for a low cost production, while the carrier may be used in several ways. The invention is not restricted to the embodiments shown in the drawing and described hereinbefore, which may be varied in different manners within in the scope of the inven¬ tion.

Claims

1. Carrier means (1) for carrying goods (8) , compri¬ sing one or a plurality of first support means (2) forming a first support plane and a plurality of regularly spaced paral¬ lel second support means (3) facing away from the first sup- port plane and projecting from the first support means (2) to form a second support plane.

2. Carrier according to claim 1, wherein said first and second support means (2, 3) extend crosswise and having a gridlike interrelationship, said first support means (2) pre- ferably consisting of a plurality of spaced boards and said second support means (2) being beams.

3. Carrier according to claim 1, wherein the^' first support plane is formed by a plate-shaped first support means (2) , and the second support means (3) including series of pro- jections (11) preferably being of a circular horizontal sec¬ tional shape.

4. Carrier according to claim 3, wherein the projec¬ tions (11) are evenly distributed over the surface of the car¬ rier (1) .

5_* Carrier according to claim 3 or 4, wherein the projections (11) comprise holes extending the full height of the carrier, these holes preferably have laterally debouching openings and/or slots both at the first support plane and at the projections (11) .

6. Carrier according to one of claims 1, 3-5, which is integrally made of plastic.

7. Carrier according to one of the preceedihg claims, wherein the total height of the carrier (1) is smaller than 7%, and preferably smaller than 5% of the greatest dimension of the carrier (1) .

8. Transport means (10) having a loading floor (9) constructed of a plurality of carriers (1) according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the second support means (3) face upwardly.