Patent Application
20050017001
This invention relates to freight conveyance containers and in particular, to platform based freight containers.
Several types of containers for transporting freight on ships, trains, trucks and other long distance transportation means, are known. These shipping containers have long been standardized, and therefore they normally have the same external dimensions so they can be conveniently stored together and stacked on top of one another, for maximum cargo space utilization.
Various types of shipping containers are differentiated by different types of freight to be transferred and the requirements associated therewith.
When the freight is in the form of commodities shipped in bundles, cartons, boxes, loose cargo, bulk, furniture, etc., a so-called “high cube” or “dry van” container is used, namely a parallelepiped container with six rectangular faces and lockable doors in one of the faces, for loading and unloading the freight.
For carrying awkward and oversize loads such as cables, sheets and large coils, heavy vehicles, timber products, etc, a so-called “flatrack” container is used. A flatrack consists of a floor structure with a high loading capacity composed of a steel frame, a softwood floor and two end walls. The end walls are formed with stanchions mounted to the floor, for attaching the end walls thereto. The stanchions are strong enough to allow cargo securing means to be attached thereto and to allow several flatracks to be stacked on top of one another.
Flatracks are often designed in a collapsible manner with the stanchions pivotally mounted on the floor, to allow the end walls to be folded from an erect position perpendicular to the floor, to a substantially flat position parallel to the floor and adjacent thereto. A collapsible flatrack is advantageous over non-collapsible containers, such as the “high cube” containers, due to the space saving when empty containers are transported.
Sometimes, an “open top” container which is similar to the “high cube” container but with no roof, is used. “Open top” containers are used for carrying heaps of material or for large and awkward cargo that is too big to fit into a standard “high cube”.
Several patents refer to collapsible “open top” containers that combine collapsibility and protection as desired. Some of them, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,570,698 by Dougherty, U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,640 by Nessfield et. al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,907 by Funaioli et. al. disclose “open top” containers with foldable side walls hingedly attached to the floor of the container, thereby enabling folding the container to a flat form as desired.
When the cargo is large and/or heavy and cumbersome and at the same time fragile and sensitive, as is the case with, for example, large panels of glass, it is preferably conveyed in an “open top” container. This container is preferable over a flatrack container due to the better side protection with which it provides the cargo. In addition, large panels of glass may break during conveyance, therefore side walls are required for preventing the glass fragments from accidentally hitting people or equipment disposed adjacent thereto. However, such large cargo can be conveniently loaded onto an “open top” container only through its roofless top, using a crane or other heavy-duty equipment.
Loading heavy and large, yet fragile glass panels, in an “open top” container typically involves fixedly placing a mobile construction on the floor of the container and stacking the glass panels thereonto by lowering them from above through the open top, using a crane. This usually requires a worker to stand inside the container, nearby the mobile construction, for ultimate arrangement of the panels on the construction and for securing the panels to the construction by ropes or other means. This job is potentially hazardous as the worker can be accidentally injured by the glass panels or even captured and squeezed between the glass panels and the side walls of the container, especially in the case of an error by a non-skilled crane operator.
In addition, unlike forklifts, cranes are costly and space-consuming and, therefore, not commonly owned by small or even medium sized businesses. This is not only an issue for the shipper but also for the customer who must use a crane to unload such freight.
Routinely, a shipper does not necessarily use the same shipping containers for all his transports. Typically, the shipping company has a large pool of shipping containers of different kinds that are used according to transportation needs for a plurality of shippers around the world.
Since shipping containers are standardized as aforementioned, the inventory of same is large enough to provide the shippers with a sufficient supply of whichever containers are required, and high efficiency in containers usage is accomplished.
When shipping containers of a special type are used, the efficiency of container's usage is reduced as when such a special container is used for conveying cargo, say, from London to New York, it must be shipped back from New York to London before reusing it.
WO 02/28747 refers to an extension module for use mostly with “open top” containers, to be assembled on top of it for sealing the container's top when desired and for increasing its volume. WO 02/28747 shows that the extension module may be used with flatrack containers too, to seal their tops and, possibly, to hold side wall panels if required.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a freight-shipping container, combining the advantages of a flatrack, such as ease of loading and collapsibility, with the possibility of side protection of freight, not inferior to the protection provided by an “open top” container. The shipping container combines these advantages based on a standard flatrack, or a flatrack-like shipping container, without requiring modification thereto.
As discussed hereinbefore, most shipping containers have long been standardized, however, freight may be sporadically transported in non-standardized containers. These containers may have a general form of the standard containers but may vary in some parameters such as external dimensions or the like. For the sake of convenience, reference will be made hereinafter to standard types of containers, by way of a non limiting example only, whilst it should be borne in mind that the present invention refers also to non-standard containers having the same essential features.
The freight-shipping container of the present invention comprises a standard flatrack, retrofitted with one or more side walls detachably attachable, for protecting a cargo.
Standard flatracks comprise a rectangular floor having four vertical elongated stanchions mounted at the corners of the floor, and two end walls extending therebetween.
The stanchions may be stationary or pivotally mounted to the flatrack's floor, enabling the end walls to be folded between an erect position for use when the flatrack is loaded, and a flat position, which is useful when empty flatracks are conveyed one on top of the other.
The U-shaped portion may protrude from the remainder of the edge of the side wall, may be produced as a separate member mounted to the edge of the side wall, e.g. by bolts or rivets or by welding or brazing, or it may be formed integrally with the side wall.
The side walls of the shipping container of the present invention each have side edges corresponding in shape to the stanchions to slidingly interact therewith, for detachably attaching the side walls to the flatrack. For this purpose, each of the side edges is formed with at least a portion having a U-shaped cross-section (hereinafter ‘U-shaped portion’), along at least a part of its length. This U-shaped portion is adapted to slidingly receive the stanchions therein, upon the assembly of the side walls to the flatrack, the sliding direction being along the longitudinal axis of the stanchions.
Forming the side edges of the side walls with U-shaped portions prevents the movement of the side walls, when attached to the flatrack, in any direction other than the direction of sliding. In other words, after a side wall has been attached to the flatrack, by slidingly lowering it onto two associated stanchions along their longitudinal axes, the only way to dissemble them is by sliding raising the side wall.
The side walls may be integrally formed with at least one grasping member such as a ring, a hook or the like, wherefrom the side walls can be held for lowering them onto the stanchions to have the U-shaped portions of the side edges slidingly interact therewith.
The attachment of the side walls to the flatrack may be strengthened by various means. For example, the side walls may be designed with projections on their bottom edges adapted to be received in holes formed in the periphery of the floor of the flatrack originally designed for securing cargo thereto. The projections may be integrally formed with the bottom edges of the side walls. Alternatively, the side walls may be formed with, or have fixed thereto, a track along their bottom edge and the projections may be formed on a projection carrier movingly engaged with the track to suit locations of the holes in the flatrack's floor. Further, in standard flatracks, each of the stanchions has a bore in its top. These bores may also be used for strengthening the attachment of the side walls to the flatrack. For instance, the side walls may be formed with connection members such as hooks attached to each of their top corners, adapted to be received in the bores when the side walls are mounted on the flatrack. Another method for strengthening the attachment of the side walls to the flatrack is by using strengthening members such as bolts screwed in holes formed in the U-shaped portion so as to abut the stanchion therefor.
It must be borne in mind that other methods for attaching the side walls to the stanchions are applicable, different from using a U-shaped portion slidingly interacting with the stanchions. These methods include, but are not limited to, hooks and rings, O-shaped side edges, latches, and so forth.
Advantages of the shipping container of present invention include inter alia the possibility of side protection of cargo loaded thereon along with ease of loading and unloading at significantly low cost. As the shipping container of the present invention may comprise a standard flatrack, which is a ubiquitous in the shipping industry, the shipper is not limited to an exclusive type of container.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention there is provided a side wall for attaching to a standard flatrack, or a flatrack-like container, whether collapsible or not, with no need for modification of either the flatrack or the side wall. The side wall, as described above, is very simply constructed and therefore easy to manufacture, handle and transport and very inexpensive to produce. It is also comparatively lightweight and simple-shaped and can therefore be easily and economically shipped back for reuse.
In order to understand the invention and to see how it may be carried out in practice, embodiments will now be described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:
Referring to
The flatrack 5 comprises a rectangular floor 10 having two side edges 15 and two end edges 20 intersecting with the side edges at four corners 25.
Four vertical stanchions 30 having rectangular cross-section are mounted on the floor 10 at the corners 25 and two vertical end walls 35 extend therebetween along the end edges 20 of the floor 10. The stanchions 30 are strong enough to support other containers (not shown) if stacked on the flatrack 5 and to enable securing cargo thereto. The stanchions 30 are formed with holes 40 on their tops, typically used for securing a container (not shown) stacked on the flatrack 5. The floor 10 is formed with holes 45 to enable further securing of cargo thereto, for instance by lashing.
The side wall 50 has a generally planar and rectangular shape with a top edge 55, a bottom edge 60 and two side edges 65. The distance between the two side edges 65 is substantially equal to the distance between the stanchions 30 of flatrack 5, and the distance between the bottom edge 60 and the top edge 55 may equal the length of the stanchions 30 as shown in
Each of the side edges 65 of the side wall 50 is formed, along a part of its length, with a U-shaped portion 75 corresponding in shape with the stanchions 30 of the flatrack 5. The portion 75 is in the form of a U-shaped member attached to the side edge 65, e.g. by bolts or rivets 76 to protrude from the remainder of the side edge 65.
Other ways to form the U-shaped portion 75 are possible and examples are illustrated in
Reverting now to
Projections 85 are formed at the bottom edge 60 of the side wall 50 for being received in the peripheral holes 45 on the floor 10 of the flatrack 5 upon mounting the side wall on the flatrack.
Referring to
Reverting again to
Attaching the side wall 50 to the flatrack 5 is accomplished by holding the side wall 50 by means of the grasping ring 80, possibly using a forklift, and lowering it in the direction of an arrow R such that the stanchions 30 are slidingly received within the U-shaped portions 75 protruding from side edges 65 of the side wall.
The shipping container 1 with the side walls 50 mounted as described above is believed to be strong enough to provide cargo loaded thereon with protection comparable to that provided by standard “open top” shipping containers. Stabilizing the side walls 50 to the flatrack 5 by the projections 85 received in the peripheral holes (
The shipping container 1 of the present invention may be used for transporting any cargo but it is particularly advantageous for large and awkward yet fragile cargo such as large glass panels, which may be loaded on, and unloaded from, the shipping container, using merely a forklift.
It should be understood that the above description of the container according to the present invention is merely explanatory and different modifications and variations of the container may exist within the scope of the claims.
For example, the side walls 50 of the shipping container 1 of the present invention, may be formed of a rigid material such as steel or rigid polymers, may combine a rigid frame with a soft panel such as fabric, or even be made of a soft material with no supporting frame at all, as long as the cargo is protected as required. Likewise, the side walls can be mounted in an inclined position, and may have convex or concave shape as the shipper desires.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 157053 | Jul 2003 | IL | national |
