Patent Application
20130341295
The present invention relates to a cylinder product storage rack system and to various methods of making the same. The rack has been designed primarily as a storage rack for wine and other temperature sensitive bottled beverages and food products that can require long term storage, and will be described herein with reference to this preferred application. However, it will be appreciated that the invention is not limited to this particular field of use and may be used to advantage in the storage of other generally cylindrical products where weight bearing strength, space optimisation, packing density and/or a smoothing of temperature fluctuations are relevant considerations.
The following discussion of the prior art is intended to place the invention in an appropriate technical context and enable the associated advantages to be fully understood. However, any discussion of the prior art throughout the specification should not be considered as an admission that such prior art is widely known or forms part of common general knowledge in the field.
Storage is a particularly important consideration for wine, as it is a product which, in many instances, can improve significantly with age, but which can also deteriorate rapidly if the correct conditions are not maintained. In this regard the primary factors that have the strongest impact on a wines quality are usually temperature, light and humidity.
Wine producers invest a lot of time and capital in controlling these factors to provide the best possible environment in which to store the wine during the initial production process and post bottling commercial cellaring stage. The challenge to retailers and purchasers of wines for the purpose of aging and or simply storing for deferred consumption in the future is to find an economic means for maintaining the correct conditions in which the wines can retain and/or improve their quality with time.
While shielding from light and providing optimum humidity are independent environmental considerations, the appropriate selection of storage rack system can play an important role in relation to space optimisation, packing density and/or in terms of smoothing and reducing the effect of ambient temperature fluctuations.
In this regard, there are a huge number of different wine storage racks available. However, most of these have some form of limitation in terms of factors, such as the effective use of space in terms of storage capacity per unit area, and very few provide much in the way of inherent shielding from ambient temperature fluctuations. In addition, most wine storage racks do not provide for the housing of different bottle diameters, which can vary significantly depending on the wine style (e.g. Claret, Burgundy, Riesling, Champagne) and/or the bottle volume (e.g. standard 750 ml bottles, magnums, half-bottles). Furthermore, many do not have sufficient inherent strength for floor to ceiling applications without the need for additional structural supports.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a cylinder product storage system that overcomes or ameliorates one of more of the disadvantages of the prior art, or which at least offers a useful alternative.
According to the invention there is provided a cylinder product vertical storage rack for storing generally cylindrical shaped products in a generally horizontal orientation, the rack including:
three parallel equi-spaced sets of longitudinal continuous primary support elements each directly or indirectly defining surfaces capable of acting as support surfaces having an effective width selected to longitudinally accommodate one or more of cylindrical products of a pre-determined length,
the sets of primary support elements being oriented such that the second and third sets of support elements intersect and supportingly engage the first set of support elements at equi-spaced intervals at included angles with respect to the first support elements of +60 degrees and −60 degrees respectively, to produce a lattice structure defining a plurality of multiple cylinder receiving generally regular hexagon prism shaped openings between the primary support elements having sides of length x, each of the hexagonal prism shaped openings being in apex to apex contact, with a pair of opposed equilateral triangular prism shaped openings also having sides of length x disposed there between.
In one preferred form the primary support elements are in the form of sheets of suitable structural material such as plywood which directly define the support surfaces. In such instances the supporting intersection of each sheet set with the other sheet sets is preferably achieved by providing an appropriate arrangement of front to mid width slots and rear to mid width slots, each slot being appropriately sized and oriented to receive the intersecting sheet to thereby form the lattice structure defined above.
However, in other embodiments, one or more of the support elements or sets of support elements are comprised of other continuous support members of reduced width in the direction of the longitudinal axis of the cylinder products, such as a set of strip elements or groups of one or more rod elements spaced and supported to define at least a part of the relevant primary support surfaces.
In yet further embodiments, discrete secondary support elements may be provided which connect to some or all of the primary support elements to define parts of the support surfaces.
Preferably the first set of primary support elements are oriented horizontally such that each hexagon shaped opening has a flat horizontal surface defining its base onto which a plurality of cylinder products can be directly or indirectly supported in a first lower horizontal row.
Desirably, the dimension x is selected according to the diameter of the cylinder products to be stored. Preferably, x is selected to provide in the finished product a support surface sized to accommodate and support a total of three cylinder products adjacent each internal surface of each hexagon shaped opening which equates to a total of 19 cylinder products within each hexagon prism shaped opening, that is a first row of three cylinders, a second row of four cylinders, a third central row of five cylinders, a fourth row of four cylinders and a final fifth row of three cylinders. Alternatively this can be viewed as a peripheral hexagon of 12 cylinder products, a concentric inner hexagon of 6 cylinder products and a central single cylinder product. The dimension w is selected to provide complete containment of cylinder products within the rack. Preferably, w is selected to longitudinally accommodate a single set of 19 cylinders within each hexagon prism shaped opening, although it should be appreciated that w could alternatively be selected to allow for more than one set of 19 cylinders to be stored within each hexagon prism shaped opening in an end to end configuration.
In another embodiment, the dimension x is selected to support two outer rows of two cylinder products and an inner row of three cylinder products to thereby store a total of 7 cylinder products.
In an additional embodiment, the dimension x is selected to support two outer rows of four cylinders, a second row of five cylinders, a third central row of six cylinders, a fourth row of five cylinders and a final fifth row of four cylinders to give a total of 37 cylinder products within each hexagon prism shaped opening.
In yet further embodiments the dimension x can be selected to support a row of any other selected number of cylinder products greater than two, three or four as described above.
It will be appreciated that where the primary support elements directly define the support surfaces, dimension x will relate directly to the size of the cylinder products to be stored. However, in embodiments where the support surfaces are defined by secondary support elements that connect on to the primary support elements, the dimension x will need to be larger to take into consideration reductions in the size of the openings arising from the degree by which the secondary support surfaces extend into the openings and thus reduce their cross sectional area.
In order to maximise packing density and stacking stability it is desirable that the dimensions be selected so that there is not excessive clearance around stacked cylinder products when the rack is fully loaded.
In the preferred form the cylinder product storage rack is a wine rack and the dimensions x is preferably selected to achieve the 19 bottle storage arrangement described above. For example, if storing Claret-style bottles each of a 750 ml capacity which have a diameter of 74-77 mm, and the support surfaces are defined directly by the primary support elements, the length x is ideally 198-202 mm. Similarly, for the larger Burgundy style bottles each of a 750 ml capacity which typically have a diameter around 80-86 mm, x is ideally around 216-224 mm. In other embodiments that utilise secondary support elements as described above, where the size of the opening is determined by the degree the secondary elements extends into the openings defined by the primary support elements, the values of x provided above will need to be increased such that the support surfaces defined by the secondary support elements correspond to the figures above.
For wine racks of the invention with primary support elements being constructed partially or solely from plywood, a plywood thickness of around 12 mm is preferred in terms of providing adequate strength, bending resistance and aesthetic appearance, without adding excessive bulk. However, other materials and other thicknesses could be used.
Similarly, for wine rack embodiments utilising support rods in place of some or all of the primary support elements, a planar arrangement of three spaced 6.3 mm steel rods has also been found to work, although clearly other arrangements could clearly be used based on a variety of visually and materially different structural elements.
Reference throughout this specification to “one embodiment”, “some embodiments” or “an embodiment” means that a particular feature, structure or characteristic described in connection with the embodiment is included in at least one embodiment of the present invention. Thus, appearances of the phrases “in one embodiment”, “in some embodiments” or “in an embodiment” in various places throughout this specification are not necessarily all referring to the same embodiment, but may. Furthermore, the particular features, structures or characteristics may be combined in any suitable manner, as would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from this disclosure, in one or more embodiments.
Preferred embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
a)-(c) is a location guide for the three stage assembly of the components of
Referring firstly to
The sets of support elements 2, 3 and 4 are oriented such that the second and third set of support elements each marked 3 and 4 respectively, intersect and supportingly engage the first set of support elements each marked 2 at spaced intervals x+the thickness of the support elements, at included angles with respect to the first support elements 2 of +60 degrees and −60 degrees respectively as shown in
In the embodiment illustrated in
In the preferred embodiments, the first set of support elements 2 are oriented to extend in a horizontal plane such that each hexagonal prism shaped opening has a flat horizontal surface 9 defining its base onto a which a plurality of cylinder shaped products can be supported in a first horizontal row.
In those embodiments constructed from sheet material, the supporting intersection of each set with the other sheet sets is preferably achieved by providing an appropriate arrangement of open ended slots extending from the front and/or rear edges of the sheets.
A specific example of this construction method for the rack of
Using the calculations above, the planar support elements are first constructed as shown in
For assembly of the embodiment illustrated in
As can be seen from
Referring next to
Referring to
Added to the primary support structure are discrete planar support elements 10 which are employed to line at least the lower three surfaces of the hexagonal prism shaped openings and the base of the triangular prism shaped openings, onto which a plurality of cylinder shaped products can be supported as described above. Preferably, slots 10′ formed in the rear face of each discrete planar support element allows for engagement with spaced rod elements, as illustrated. In one particularly preferred form, the discrete planar support elements have slots 10′ which are deep enough to provide, on installation, an opening configured for larger burgundy style bottles, but supplied with removable inserts, such that by retaining the inserts they can also be used to provide a smaller opening more ideally sized to receive smaller claret-style bottles.
It should be noted that in other variations alternative connection means could be provided for securing the discrete support elements to the primary support structure including external brackets and/or providing through holes in the support elements through which the rods could be inserted during assembly.
Desirably, the dimension x is selected according to the diameter of the cylinder products to be stored. Preferably, x is selected to provide in the finished product a support surface sized to accommodate and support a total of three cylinder products adjacent each internal surface of each hexagon shaped opening which equates to a total of 19 cylinder products within each hexagon prism shaped opening, that is a first row of three cylinders, a second row of four cylinders, a third central row of five cylinders, a fourth row of four cylinders and a final fifth row of three cylinders. Alternatively this can be viewed as a peripheral hexagon of 12 cylinder products, a concentric inner hexagon of 6 cylinder products and a central single cylinder product. The dimension w is selected to provide complete containment of bottles within the rack. While the preferred embodiment described is sized to have a width corresponding to a single bottle, it should be appreciated that w could alternatively be selected to allow for more than one set of 19 cylinders to be stored longitudinally end to end within each hexagon prism shaped opening.
In another embodiment (not illustrated), the dimension x is selected to support two outer rows of two cylinder and an inner row of three cylinder products to thereby store a total of 7 cylinder products.
In an additional embodiment (also not illustrated), the dimension x is selected to support two outer rows of four cylinder, a second row of five cylinders, a third central row of six cylinders, a fourth row of five cylinders and a final fifth row of four cylinders to give a total of 37 cylinder products within each hexagon prism shaped opening.
For wine racks of the invention with primary support elements being constructed partially or solely from plywood, a plywood thickness of around 12 mm is preferred in terms of providing adequate strength, bending resistance and aesthetic appearance, without adding excessive bulk. However, other materials and other thicknesses could be used.
Similarly, for wine rack embodiments utilising support rods in place of some or all of the primary support elements, a planar arrangement of three spaced 6.3 mm steel rods has also been found to work, although clearly other arrangements could clearly be used based on a variety of visually and materially different structural elements. It will be appreciated that where the primary support elements directly define the support surfaces, dimension x will relate directly to the size of the cylinder products to be stored. However, in embodiments where the support surfaces are defined by secondary support elements that connect on to the primary support elements, the dimension x will need to be larger to take into consideration reductions in the size of the openings arising from the degree by which the secondary support surfaces extend into the openings and thus reduce their cross sectional area.
Data for commercially available wine rack systems obtained from www.thewinerackshop.com.au website
A pocket-style modular wine rack system constructed of ABS plastic (CellarStak®) with a 28-bottle capacity was purchased from The Wine Rack Shop (www.winerackshop.com.au). The CellarStak system was assembled in a 7 (high) by 4 (wide) array in accordance with the manufacturer's instructions. Once assembled, the linear dimensions of the CellarStak system were 735 mm high by 420 mm wide by 240 mm deep as shown in
An embodiment of the present invention was constructed as shown in
Each rack was placed side by side on top of a 970 mm high plywood bench, located against the rear wall of a garage in Wollongong, Australia. The garage door is frequently opened and closed, resulting in fluctuations in the ambient room temperature of the garage.
Each rack was filled with a mixture of unopened 750 ml claret-style, burgundy style, riesling-style and champagne-style wine bottles 11. The CellarStak rack accommodated 28 bottles, while the comparator rack held 21 bottles, including 2 champagne-style wine bottles (100 mm maximum diameter) in each of the two triangular prism shaped openings.
Four identical temperature probes (Part #TMC6-HD; Onset, Cape Cod, Mass., USA) connected to a 4-input data logger (HOBO U12-008; Onset, Cape Cod, Mass., USA) were used to record the temperature of 3 test bottles at 10 minute intervals. Probe #1 was fitted to the side of the left-most bottle of the central 5-bottle row located in the hexagon prism shaped opening. Probe #2 was fitted to the side of the central bottle of the 19 bottles located in the hexagon prism shaped opening. Probe #3 located between the two rack systems to measure ambient room temperature. Probe #4 was fitted to a central bottle of the CellarStak rack, at the same height as the other probes. Probes #1, #2 and #4 were secured by gaffer tape in the same orientation length-wise along the upper left side of the bottle (each a Claret style bottle) and 80 mm from the bottle base. The location of each probe on the various test bottles is marked with solid dots and the location of the ambient temperature probe is marked with a circled star in
Temperature plots were downloaded to a PC-computer loaded with HOBO Lite software (Onset, Cape Cod, Mass., USA) and compared for temperature variation in relation to the ambient temperature (
While various specific embodiments have been disclosed, it will be clear that many features can be varied, or the features of one embodiment combined with those of another embodiment and still fall within the invention. For example, the concept of providing discrete support elements could be used in any of the embodiments as a means of altering the size of selected storage openings to configure each opening to receive a particular range of cylinder or bottle size. Further this need not be done uniformly as shown in the fourth embodiment described in
It will also be appreciated from the foregoing description that the cylinder storage rack of the invention, particularly when used as rack for wine products and the like, has significant advantages over the prior art.
Firstly, the structure is inherently extremely strong, despite the large openings that are provided. In this regard, the opposed angled intersection of the support elements prevents any relative sliding there between and is self locking plus it resists racking forces as well as vertical loads. The structure is also significantly stronger than, for example, a diamond shaped opening lattice formation which does not have the bi-directional bracing of this particular structure. It is similarly much stronger than a honeycomb type structure, which does not have the advantage of continuously extending linear load bearing elements as in the present design.
Secondly, not only do the large hexagonal openings enable a high packing density of popular red and/or white wines as required, the equilateral triangular openings disposed between the hexagonal openings, are also extremely useful for storage non-standard sized bottles such as magnums and custom shaped champagne style bottles and the like. Furthermore, the high packing density translates to a high thermal mass which helps to limit temperature fluctuations of product stored within the rack when the rack is subjected to ambient temperature variations.
Although the invention has been described with reference to specific examples, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that the invention may be embodied in many other forms.
