DE29921927U1 - Transport pallet - Google Patents

Description

The present innovation relates to a transport pallet consisting of several parallel longitudinal beams made of injection-molded plastic, a supporting surface, and several connecting means for connecting the supporting surface to each of the longitudinal beams, wherein these connecting means have pins with a bayonet lock which penetrate the transport surface equipped with corresponding connecting holes and engage in matching connecting holes in the longitudinal beams, in which position they can be secured by twisting in a manner which firmly connects the supporting surface to the longitudinal beams, and wherein the supporting surface is connected to each of the longitudinal beams several times.

European patent no. 0 564 989 describes a transport pallet made of injection-molded plastic with three longitudinal beams connected to a support surface by means of bayonet pins. This transport pallet is lightweight due to its design of longitudinal beams with a large amount of hollow space, which can be easily manufactured from injection-molded plastic, and it also offers the advantage of being extremely space-saving to store, as the connections made by means of the bayonet pins can be easily removed and the individual parts of the pallet can be stored in a very close position.

The pallet according to the European patent has a one-piece support surface with a smooth surface, which is connected to each longitudinal beam by means of three bayonet pins.

In a number of applications it is desirable that the supporting surface would not be smooth, but would have a configuration of parallel, spaced-apart boards, as is known from traditional but heavy wooden pallets (Euro pallets).

A wing with such a construction can only be cut from sheet material with difficulty but would have to be manufactured by injection molding, for example.

It is well known that injection molding becomes more expensive as the molded parts increase in size, and it is therefore economically unthinkable to produce an entire supporting surface of a standardized Euro pallet using injection molding.

Furthermore, it would be advantageous for storage and handling if the individual parts of the pallet were relatively small and handy.

There is therefore a desire to divide the wing, at least into two parts, but in this case the manual work for connecting the wing to the longitudinal beams is increased, since each part has to be connected to each longitudinal beam at least twice to prevent shearing.

With two partial surfaces, this results in four connection points per longitudinal beam, or twelve connection points per pallet instead of nine as in the pallet according to the European patent, which would equate to a 33% increase in assembly work if the advantage of reducing the size of the wing parts were to be achieved at the expense of this.

In order to eliminate this disadvantage, the innovation aims to design a transport pallet in such a way that when the wing is divided into two parts, it is not necessary to increase the number of connection points between the longitudinal beams and the wing.

This object is achieved in that the transport surface is divided into two equal partial surfaces that are symmetrical to one another and in that each of these partial surfaces has one full connecting hole per longitudinal member and one half-hole that is open at the side per longitudinal member, wherein the arrangement of the half-holes is such that each half-hole of a partial surface results in a complete connecting hole after the two symmetrical partial surfaces are joined together.

In this way, each longitudinal beam is connected three times to the entire wing, as is known from the transport pallet from the European patent, although in this case only a one-piece wing needs to be connected to the longitudinal beams.

The principle behind this innovation is to place the dividing line between the two partial surfaces in such a way that it cuts through the middle connecting holes, so that after the two half surfaces are put together, three full connecting holes are created.

Furthermore, the innovation is also characterized in that the side of the wing facing away from the longitudinal members, which faces upwards during use, has a configuration known per se consisting of transverse boards and spaces separating them.

The transport pallet according to the present innovation is designed in such a way that the partial surfaces arranged symmetrically to one another have abutting surfaces corresponding to the intersection lines of the half-holes.

The innovation is now explained in more detail with the help of the drawing, where Fig. shows a transport pallet according to the innovation, not completely assembled, and Fig. shows a floor and elevation view of a pallet according to the innovation.

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Fig. 1 shows three longitudinal beams 1, 2 and 3, which are arranged parallel to each other and at the same height, and each of which has three connecting holes or 12.

As shown in European Patent 0 564 989 and in particular in Figure 2 thereof, these connecting holes 15 of the present innovation have a basically round shape, which additionally has two opposing cutouts 18 for the passage of the extensions 7 of the connecting pins 6 forming the bayonet closure.

Here too, as in the European patent, the longitudinal beams consist of plastic injection-molded parts with a lot of hollow space, whereby a longitudinal beam consists of two horizontal boards 19 and 25, which are held at a certain distance by corresponding webs 14.

The connecting pins 6 consist of a cylindrical head 9 which has a diameter which is greater than its axial height and to which a slimmer cylindrical part 8 is connected which carries the said extensions 7 at its end facing away from the head.

In the figure, one of the two partial surfaces 4 is arranged above the parallel longitudinal beams in such a way that the connecting holes 5 of the partial surface 4 are aligned with the underlying connecting holes in the ends of the longitudinal beams concealed by the partial surface 4.

By inserting the connecting pins 6 into the connecting holes 15 and passing the extensions 7 under the cover boards 19, whereby the head 9 comes to lie in the recess 10 of the connecting holes 5 and the cylindrical part 8 in the recess 11, and then turning the pins in the sense of a bayonet lock, the partial surfaces 4 are fixed to the longitudinal beams 1 to 3.

From Fig. 1 it can be seen that in this way the partial surface 4 shown can initially be firmly connected to the three hidden ends of the longitudinal beams by means of three pins, whereby a naturally undesirable twisting of the longitudinal beams with respect to the partial surface 4 about the axis of the connecting pin is still possible when the pallet is in use.

Furthermore, Fig.l shows three half-holes 20 which are open at the sides and have been cut from full holes into half-holes by the abutting surface 16.

When the second partial surface (not shown) is added, these half-holes are supplemented to form full connecting holes and the

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The resulting full connecting holes serve to fix both partial surfaces with a single connecting pin per longitudinal member.

On the one hand, this prevents the shearing of the longitudinal beams with respect to the partial surfaces 4 and, at the same time, both partial surfaces are fixed with a single tenon per beam.

It is also clear that both partial surfaces are identical, so that only a single injection mold is required. However, the two partial surfaces are arranged above the longitudinal beams in such a way that they are symmetrically opposite one another, with the surface of the partial surfaces 4, which consists of boards 13 running transversely to the longitudinal beams at a mutual distance 17, having a board of half width in the area of the half holes 20, which is supplemented by a corresponding, identically shaped half board of the other partial surface to form a transverse board of full width.

The boards 13 made of injection-molded plastic are connected to a base 21 which either extends over the entire area of a partial area 4, or they can be connected to parts 22 which run transversely to the transverse boards, i.e. parallel to the longitudinal beams and rest on them.

However, the boards 13 are cast or molded in one piece with the floor 21, regardless of whether the floor consists of three transverse parts 22 or of a plate extending over the entire extent of a partial surface, so that shearing of the longitudinal members with respect to the supporting surface is reliably prevented.

The pallet according to the present innovation has all the advantages of the pallet of European patent 0 564 989, and offers the additional advantage that its support surface can also be manufactured by plastic injection molding, at a reasonable cost due to the smaller dimensions of the partial surfaces compared to a whole support surface. Furthermore, due to the special new design of some of the connecting holes, it is possible to assemble the new pallet without the additional work caused by dividing the support surface into two partial surfaces.

Fig. 2 shows the plan view and elevation of a pallet according to the innovation, the partial surface 4 of which consists of individual elements 22 running transversely to the longitudinal direction of the longitudinal beams 1, 2 and 3 and resting on the longitudinal beams.

As the reference number 23 indicates, the underside of these elements has a round recess concentrically around the connecting holes 5, which cooperates with an equally round elevation 24 on the upper side of the longitudinal beams 1 - 3 in such a way that when the partial surface 4 is placed on the three

Longitudinal beams 1-3 an adjustment and provisional fixing of the parts in a way that the connecting holes 5 of the partial surface 4 with the connecting holes 15 of the longitudinal beams can be achieved in a concentrically aligned manner.

The partial surface 4 of Fig. 2 has an embodiment by means of boards 13 which run at a distance 17 from one another and can be produced either by a plastic injection molding process or cut from sheet material and thermally welded with appropriate post-processing of the connecting holes 5 and the adjusting recesses 23.

The arrangement of four recesses 23 in the four corners of the rectangular partial surface 4 ensures correct alignment of the longitudinal members and due to the preliminary alignment of all parts to be connected to one another by means of the bulges 24 and the recesses 23, the final fixing by means of the connecting pins can be carried out without any problems.

The upper side of the head parts 9 of the connecting pins 6 advantageously has a central hexagonal recess, due to which the connecting pin can be easily rotated after inserting a hexagon key.

Claims (3)

1. Transport pallet consisting of several parallel longitudinal beams made of injection-molded plastic, a support surface, and several connecting means for connecting the support surface to each of the longitudinal beams, these connecting means having pins with a bayonet lock which penetrate the transport surface equipped with corresponding connecting holes and engage in matching connecting holes in the longitudinal beams, in which position they can be secured by twisting in a manner which firmly connects the support surface to the longitudinal beams, and the support surface is connected to each of the longitudinal beams several times, characterized in that the transport surface is divided into two equal partial surfaces ( 4 ) which are symmetrical to one another and that each of these partial surfaces has one full connecting hole ( 5 ) per longitudinal beam ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) and one half-hole ( 20 ) open at the side per longitudinal beam, the arrangement of the half-holes being such that each half-hole of a partial surface results in a complete connecting hole after the two symmetrical partial surfaces have been joined together. 2. Transport pallet according to claim 1, characterized in that the side of the supporting surface facing away from the longitudinal beams ( 1 , 2 , 3 ) and pointing upwards when the pallet is in use has a configuration known per se consisting of transverse boards ( 13 ) and spaces ( 17 ) separating them. 3. Transport pallet according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the partial surfaces arranged symmetrically to one another have abutting surfaces ( 16 ) corresponding to intersection lines of the half-holes ( 20 ).