Patent Application
20060244277
This invention relates to a sling for safely hoisting fire extinguishers and other tubular equipment to elevated locations.
During major maintenance operations at refineries and chemical plants, it is often necessary for workers to enter and work inside tall generally cylindrical structures, known as vessels. These vessels typically are reactor vessels such as catalytic crackers, separation vessels such as crude units and the like. Because there is a substantial fire hazard inside the vessels, it has become common practice to provide a worker, called a fire watch, whose responsibility is keeping a lookout for fires and providing a first response in the event of a fire. The fire watch is equipped with an industrial sized fire extinguisher which must be delivered to the location where work is being conducted.
Because these type vessels are often quite tall, equipment such as industrial sized fire extinguishers are typically delivered by the hoist line of a crane or winch unit. In the past, a fire extinguisher was simply tied to a flexible line and hoisted to its desired location. Because a fire extinguisher has no obvious connections for a hoist line and because the workers on the ground tying the hoist line to the fire extinguisher have little or no experience in this exact problem, it is little wonder that fire extinguishers are periodically dropped during the hoisting operation. One can imagine the dangers in dropping a 50-100 pound load from great heights.
Disclosures of some interest relative to this invention are found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,440,712; 3,116,948; 3,351,371; 3,870,358; 5,645,129 and 5,816,331.
In this invention, a sling is made of bodily flexible webbing, preferably of a woven material, of suitable strength to accommodate the load of an industrial sized fire extinguisher which is typically on the order of 50-100 pounds. The sling is more-or-less tubular to accommodate the conventional tubular tank of a fire extinguisher. The bottom of the sling is reinforced with a separate structural member, which is preferably a resilient planar rubber member or plate. Sections of the webbing extend upwardly from the open top of the tubular sling and are looped to easily connect to a hoist line.
Because the webbing is of bodily flexible material, a fire extinguisher may be placed in the sling without occupying any appreciable greater volume. This allows the fire extinguishers to be stowed in the sling, meaning that it provides a convenient package so the slings do not have to be found when a major maintenance operation is approaching.
It is an object of this invention to provide an improved sling for hoisting a fire extinguisher or other tubular equipment to an elevated location.
A further object of this invention is to provide an improved sling-fire extinguisher package for hoisting the fire extinguisher to an elevated location.
A more specific object of this invention is to provide an improved sling, made of fabric webbing and a resilient bottom structure, for hoisting a fire extinguisher or other tubular equipment.
These and other objects and advantages of this invention will become more apparent as this description proceeds, reference being made to the accompanying drawings and appended claims.
Referring to
The tubular body 12 provides a closed bottom 24, a generally cylindrical section 26 and an open top 28. The bottom 24 of the sling 10 is fabricated by orienting the webbing 14, 14′ at various angles about a common point 30 as shown in
The looped ends 18 comprise the ends of the webbing 14 which are looped and then sewn or otherwise attached to themselves. Each of the webbing 14′ is looped over the uppermost webbing 16 and attached to itself at a location in the cylindrical section 26. There are at least two looped ends 18 and preferably more to provide stability, i.e. prevent the fire extinguisher 22 from sliding out of the sling 10 during hoisting.
The webbing 14, 14′, 16 may be of any suitable type and strength and is conveniently a doubled nylon web having a tensile strength of at least two hundred pounds.
The structural bottom 20 is preferably of circular shape to support the fire extinguisher 22 and also to prevent the webbing 14, 14′ from spreading to the extent that the fire extinguisher 22 may fall between adjacent ones of the webbing 14, 14′. The bottom 20 is preferably made of a rubber or rubber-like material providing a cushion for the fire extinguisher 22 in the event the sling 10 is dropped.
Although the structural bottom 20 is shown in
Although this invention has been disclosed and described in its preferred forms with a certain degree of particularity, it is understood that the present disclosure of the preferred forms is only by way of example and that numerous changes in the details of operation and in the combination and arrangement of parts may be resorted to without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as hereinafter claimed.
