Patent Application
20070116552
The present invention relates to the delivery and transportation of fuels in small containers, and in particular to methods and apparatus for making such delivery and transportation efficient and less costly.
The pressurized gas business is a competitive nationwide industry. The pressurized gas business requires the transportation of a large number of pressurized gas cylinders. These cylinders are filled with gas before delivery to customer sites. After the gas is consumed, the empty cylinders are picked up and delivered to the gas refueling station. These empty cylinders are refilled and delivered back to customer sites. This process requires repeated loading and unloading of filled and empty gas cylinders. Since the process requires repeated cylinder loading and unloading, the process is labor intensive and expensive. Therefore, the industry is constantly examining new ways to better transport the large numbers of pressurized gas cylinders needed by its customers.
palletized trucking system is one conventional approach for transporting the large numbers of pressurized gas cylinders needed in the industry, e.g., in Stavlo, U.S. Pat. No. 4,542,774. This conventional palletized trucking system allows a pallet holding a plurality of gas cylinders to be loaded and unloaded from the vehicle using a forklift, as opposed to loading and unloading individual gas cylinders. This conventional palletized trucking system reduced the number of times an operator was required to handle each individual cylinder, which in turn helped reduce the occurrence of operator injuries compared to earlier cylinder handling approaches.
However, such palletized trucking systems are not completely satisfactory. First, each of the cylinders still had to be individually loaded and unloaded from the pallet during the delivery cycle. In this conventional palletized trucking system, the cylinders are removed from the pallet for refueling. This refueling process requires handling each cylinder twice, once when the cylinder is removed from the pallet to recharge the cylinder, and again when it is returned to the pallet fully charged for delivery to a customer. There have been attempts to remedy this disadvantage that have met with varying degrees of success, e.g., in Princiotta, U.S. Pats. Nos. 5,709,252 and 5,954,099. However, improvements to the conventional approach are desirable.
Second, the weight and size of the pallets required that the pallets be loaded and unloaded from the delivery vehicle using a forklift or other mechanized equipment. The need to have such equipment available for loading and unloading may result in increased capital cost for gas cylinder providers and also increased fuel usage.
Third, this conventional palletized approach required that a delivery driver had to load and unload individual cylinders at customer sites. This may result in increased delivery times as the delivery driver was required to physically carry and place each cylinder at the desired customer location.
Fourth, the amount of physical handling of the cylinder often resulted in an increased rate of injuries occurring. In the conventional palletized trucking system, each cylinder is stored in an embedded position at a zero or negative angle to the horizontal plane. A cross bar may be positioned across the cylinders to lock the cylinders in place on the pallet. To remove a cylinder from a pallet, the cylinder may be manually lifted to clear the cross bar. Whether the cylinder is being lifted for delivery or recharging, such a movement may result in injury to an operator.
Improvements to the conventional approaches for handling and transporting pressurized gas cylinders for delivery to customers and for other purposes are desirable.
The present invention relates generally to the transportation and handling of pressurized gas cylinders. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method of handling and delivering gas cylinders where the cylinders do not need to be removed from a cylinder holding cage during the charging with a desired gas and transportation of the cylinders to a delivery location. Cylinders are only removed from the cylinder holding cage upon transportation of the cage to a delivery location.
The present invention further relates to a cylinder holding cage for gas cylinders. The cage includes shelves for storing gas cylinders in a generally horizontal position and a base frame within which are formed receptacles for receiving a lifting device.
The present invention further relates to a hand truck for moving single gas cylinders.
For the purpose of facilitating an understanding of the invention, there is illustrated in the accompanying drawings a preferred embodiment thereof, from an inspection of which, when considered in connection with the following description, the invention, its mode of construction, assembly and its operation, and many of its advantages should be readily understood and appreciated.
Before the present methods are described, it is understood that this invention is not limited to the particular methodology or apparatuses described, as these may vary. It is also to be understood that the terminology used herein is for the purpose of describing particular embodiments only, and is not intended to limit the scope of the present invention which will be limited only by the appended claims.
It must be noted that as used herein and in the appended claims, the singular forms “a”, “an”, and “the” include plural reference unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Thus, for example, reference to “a door” includes a plurality of such door, and equivalents thereof known to those skilled in the art, and so forth.
Unless defined otherwise, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meanings as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. Although any methods and materials similar or equivalent to those described herein can be used in the practice or testing of the present invention, the preferred methods and materials are now described.
The practice of the present invention will employ, unless otherwise indicated, conventional techniques of mechanical and electrical engineering, which are within the skill of the art.
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Access doors 48 may be connected to front face 32. Access doors 48 may be attached to the front face 32 by a removable hinge 50 or by other movable connections. While removable hinges are shown, it is anticipated that other removable and non-removable hinges or others movable mounting arrangements may be used within the scope of the present invention. Alternatively, access doors 48 may be permanently mounted to front face 32 or to some other portion of frame 27. Access doors 48 may be secured with a chain 52 that extends through and locks into a pigeon hole 54. Chain 52 may be attached to one of the access doors 48 with pigeon hole 54 attached to rigid front face 32. It is anticipated that other door securing mechanisms may be used to secure one or both access doors 48 within the scope of the present invention.
Lift receptacles 24 may be attached to support base frame 28 and a lowest horizontal shelve 56. Lift receptacles 24 may also include a hand truck cut out 26. Conventional hand trucks for moving objects such as cage 10 may include wheels or rollers that need to be positioned closer to the load to be carried, due to the design and weight of the load and the lifting device. Alternatively, lift receptacles 24 may not include cut outs 26, and be configured for use with fork lifts or other similar lifting devices. Cylinder holding cage 10 may be provided with a metal construction but other materials of similar strength and ruggedness may also be used.
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An alternative embodiment of a single cylinder hand truck 166 is shown in
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The present invention provides methods and apparatus for a pressurized gas cylinder delivery system, which permits rapid loading, unloading and refueling of gas cylinders. The transportation system may include transportation equipment, such as a truck, and a cylinder holding cage which may be used to deliver the cylinders.
cylinder handling and delivery method may be carried out using one or more cylinder holding cages positioned within a truck or other transportation equipment. First, with the truck at a cylinder refueling site, cylinders held by the cylinder holding cage may be filled or charged with gas using a gas delivery device, while the cylinders are on the truck and within the cylinder holding cage. The gas delivery device may be external to the truck. Next, the truck may be moved to one or more customer locations. At a customer location, a cylinder holding cage with full cylinders may be unloaded from the truck using a lifting device, such as a fork lift or a hand truck which directly engages the cylinder holding cage. A cylinder holding cage with empty cylinders from the customer location may then be loaded into the truck using the lifting device. Finally, the truck may return the cylinder holding cages with the empty cylinders to the cylinder refueling site. The lifting device may be carried on the truck or may be provided at the customer location.
In other embodiments, the cylinder holding cages are initially placed on a surface; filled with cylinders and loaded into the truck. The truck may adapted to store a forklift on the truck's exterior. Single cylinders may be delivered from the cylinder holding cage using a smaller lifting device, such as a single cylinder hand truck. The cylinders may have a gas level indicating device that indicates the amount of gas present in the cylinder. Individual cylinders may be unloaded from a cylinder holding cage at each of a plurality of customer locations before returning to the cylinder refueling site.
The cylinder holding cages used in the truck may have a rigid frame formed from a top face, bottom frame and sidewalls, with a plurality of shelves positioned between the top face and bottom frame and extending between the sidewalls. The cylinder holding cages may include at least one movable door allowing access to a plurality of cylinder locations defined on the shelves. Such movable doors may include but is not limited to a hinged door, sliding door or porous screen. The bottom frame may have at least one receptacle secured to the bottom frame below the first shelf. The receptacle may be adapted to allow a variety lifting devices to lift and move the cylinder holding cage. The plurality of shelves may be configured to allow the cylinders to be storage generally horizontally.
The hinged door may have some type of lock, including but not limited to mechanical, chemical or electrical locks, to keep the door closed and prevent removal of a cylinder from a shelf. The cylinder holding cage's shelves may have an upwardly convex surface or a plurality of channels defining ramps that may aid in holding cylinders within the shelves and to aid in the transition of cylinders into and out of the cylinder holding cage. The cylinder holding cage may have a plurality of support beams attached between the vertically sequenced shelves.
A cylinder holding cage and a single cylinder hand truck may used in combination to handle and transport individual pressurized gas cylinders. The single cylinder hand truck may have a base with a top, bottom and sidewalls. The base may include two front stationary wheels and at least one movable rear wheel and at least one generally vertical support beam. The vertical support beam may have a vertically movable horizontal platform with at least two horizontal beams that form a channel to hold at least one cylinder. The single cylinder hand truck may have horizontal beams, which include at least one receptacle that secures to a cylinder holding cage. The single cylinder hand truck may have at least one clamp mounted to one of the horizontal beams to secure a cylinder in place on the hand truck. Movement of the horizontal platform vertically may be by means of various mechanisms, which may include but are not limited to a mechanical pulley system or an electrical motor. The single cylinder hand truck may include a handle attached to the vertical support beam to facilitate movement of the hand truck by an operator.
