Patent Application
20100327544
Not Applicable
All of the material in this patent application is subject to copyright protection under the copyright laws of the United States and of other countries. As of the first effective filing date of the present application, this material is protected as unpublished material.
However, permission to copy this material is hereby granted to the extent that the copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent documentation or patent disclosure, as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
The present invention generally relates to the manual transport of gas/fluid cylinders and the like.
The present invention is specifically designed to address several areas of safety concern in the manual transportation of gas/fluid cylinders. These gas/fluid cylinders are often referred to as DOT High Pressure 3AA/4AA cylinders and are used to contain and transport oxygen, argon, air, nitrogen, mixtures, and other compressed gas and fluid applications. These cylinders are manufactured under strict quality control guidelines and are specifically designed for the safe transport of compressed gas and/or fluids. To implement necessary safety margins in the manufacture of these cylinders, wall thickness and subsequent weight of these cylinders can be significant. For example, a 4AA480 cylinder (“XG” style, 15×56 inch) empty might weigh approximately 150 lbs and fully filled with liquid might weigh as much as 425 lbs.
These weights make the manual transportation of these cylinders extremely difficult, as in many cases the transportation must be accomplished without the use of truck tailgate lifts and also must be accomplished with only a single person. In a typical application environment in which a maintenance person is dispatched to a utility substation to deliver switch contactor arc suppression fluid in cylinder tanks, the cylinder is loaded on a pickup truck and must be unloaded onto rugged gravel terrain surrounding the utility station and then transported by one person into the substation facility. Due to the extreme weight of the cylinder tanks, many individuals have difficulty in safely unloading the cylinder tank from the pickup truck, either incurring back injuries attempting to manually unload the cylinder or alternatively accidentally dropping the cylinder onto the ground in their attempt to unload the cylinder from the pickup truck.
The prior art regarding the use of cylinder carts is well documented. However, conventional cylinder carts as might be used in the welding industry and the like are unable to address the issue of unloading extremely heavy and bulky fluid-filled cylinders from pickup trucks and the line by a single person.
Traditional cylinder carts do not incorporate sufficient stability to transport these cylinders across rugged terrain as might be typically encountered in an electrical power substation. Additionally, the use of conventional cylinder carts and the like in these environments raises a safety issue in that poor stability in conventional hand trucks could cause the cylinder to be dropped, resulting in catastrophic personal and property damage should the cylinder valve be compromised during the accident.
The prior art with respect to cylinder carts suffers from several deficiencies, including but not limited to providing for safe elevation and/or safe unloading of the cylinder onto a truck in situations in which a single person is available for the transportation of the cylinder.
Accordingly, the objectives of the present invention are (among others) to circumvent the deficiencies in the prior art and affect the following objectives:
While these objectives should not be understood to limit the teachings of the present invention, in general these objectives are achieved in part or in whole by the disclosed invention that is discussed in the following sections. One skilled in the art will no doubt be able to select aspects of the present invention as disclosed to affect any combination of the objectives described above.
The present invention and typical application is generally illustrated in
The present invention can be generally illustrated by the preferred exemplary embodiment illustrated by the assembly view diagram of
This system as generally illustrated in
For a fuller understanding of the advantages provided by the invention, reference should be made to the following detailed description together with the accompanying drawings wherein:
While this invention is susceptible of embodiment in many different forms, there is shown in the drawings and will herein be described in detailed preferred embodiment of the invention with the understanding that the present disclosure is to be considered as an exemplification of the principles of the invention and is not intended to limit the broad aspect of the invention to the embodiment illustrated.
The numerous innovative teachings of the present application will be described with particular reference to the presently preferred embodiment, wherein these innovative teachings are advantageously applied to the particular problems of a CYLINDER CART. However, it should be understood that this embodiment is only one example of the many advantageous uses of the innovative teachings herein. In general, statements made in the specification of the present application do not necessarily limit any of the various claimed inventions. Moreover, some statements may apply to some inventive features but not to others.
The present invention may be constructed of a variety of materials, including but not limited to plastic, metal, wood, etc. Embodiments utilizing mild steel, steel alloys, aluminum, and/or aluminum alloys are known to be satisfactory for many anticipated applications. In particular, aluminum alloys such as 6061-T6 and the like may be particularly applicable in embodiments where low weight, high strength, and resistance to spark generation are desirable. The use of this material significantly reduces the potential for air/fluid explosions generated by steel sparking due to friction with ground cover and gravel, etc. in situations where cylinders have leaked or are transported in environments that are contaminated with potential explosive hazards. The general construction illustrated herein is not intended to limit the scope of materials suitable for this application. One skilled in the art will recognize that the system may be constructed of a wide variety of materials without departing from the scope of the invention as taught herein.
As generally illustrated in
As generally illustrated in
The rationale for this angle selection is to ensure the overall stability of the cylinder cart as the cylinder tank is raised above ground level. In some circumstances the cylinder cart with cylinder tank loaded would have a center of gravity such that the tank would tend to lean forward, creating an unstable platform. In these circumstances, by increasing the angle between the elevation guide rails and platform forks the cylinder cart will remain stable even when the cylinder tank is fully elevated.
As illustrated in the detail drawing of
However, some preferred embodiments may raise the tire/wheel assembly slightly above the surface plane of the ground (0402) to ensure that the wheel assembly will not permit movement of the stabilizing platform under circumstances in which the ground is highly irregular or rough. To affect construction of this embodiment, the outer circumference of the tire/wheel assembly (0105) is designed to be above the surface plane of the stabilizing platform floor forks (0201).
As illustrated in the detail drawings of
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
As illustrated in
Given that the weight of the cylinder tanks being manipulated by the present invention is more than sufficient to cause serious bodily injury and even death if the cylinder cart is accidentally mobile with an elevated cylinder tank engaged, the addition of the disclosed safety brake system is anticipated in many preferred embodiments.
Referencing
The present invention anticipates a wide variety of variations in the basic theme of construction. The examples presented previously do not represent the entire scope of possible usages. They are meant to cite a few of the almost limitless possibilities.
The present invention anticipates a wide variety of operational variations. However, one preferred exemplary operational scenario is generally illustrated in
It is significant to note in the foregoing example that at no time has the operator had to lift or manipulate the cylinder tank in a manner which would be injurious to the operator's back. This is important given the weight of the cylinder tank and the propensity for operator back injuries when attempting to lift objects of this weight in this application environment. Additionally, note that under no circumstances is the cylinder tank unrestrained in a manner which would be considered unsafe given the possibility and danger of tank rupture should a cylinder tank fall and incur a valve dislocation.
A cylinder cart system that incorporates a stabilizing platform for safely loading and offloading of gas/fluid cylinders from trucks and the like has been disclosed. The cylinder cart system incorporates a stabilizing platform to which a tank retention mechanism is attached that permits a gas/fluid cylinder to be retrained and raised/lowered via the use of an integrated elevator mechanism that may be manually or power operated. In the raised position, the cylinder cart provides sufficient stability to permit safe offloading of a gas/fluid cylinder onto a pickup truck or the like by a single person. In the lowered position, the cylinder cart incorporates hand truck functionality to permit transport of the gas/fluid cylinder across rugged terrain. An optional integrated safety braking system may in some embodiments provide additional stabilization of the system when the cylinder cart is in the raised position.
Although a preferred embodiment of the present invention has been illustrated in the accompanying drawings and described in the foregoing Detailed Description, it will be understood that the invention is not limited to the embodiments disclosed, but is capable of numerous rearrangements, modifications, and substitutions without departing from the spirit of the invention as set forth and defined by the following claims.
