US 2007/0163979 A1Published application

Rack with extruded custom struts

OwnerJosh Carruthers, Naim Siddiquiinventors

Life of this patent

Estimating the term…

Loading patent…

Abstract

A rack for holding panels, includes a pair of extruded specially-shaped struts (30, 32) at opposite sides of the rack that enable rapid mounting of a panel (11-15) at any height along the struts. Each strut includes a front mount portion (70) that forms a cavity (72) with a front vertical strip-shaped opening (86) and a pair of flanges (82, 84) at laterally opposite sides of the opening and includes an integral column portion (150) that increases resistance to lateral strut buckling. A side of the panel is supported on the mount portion by a screw (102) that passes through a hole (94) in the panel and that threadably engages a nut (104) that lies in the mount portion cavity and against the flanges. The front-to-rear length J of the cavity is short enough to allow a compression spring (106) to fit in the cavity and press the nut against the flanges until a screw can be installed.

Claims11

Dependent claims

A rack with front and rear longitudinally spaced ends, for supporting panels with holes, which includes a pair of laterally spaced and parallel vertical struts and a plurality of beams that extend between said struts to fix the spacing of the struts, wherein:

each of said struts forms a front mount portion with cavity walls that form a mount cavity with a front that forms a vertical strip-shaped opening and that forms a pair of flanges on laterally opposite sides of said opening, said flanges forming rearwardly-facing flange surfaces at opposite sides of the front of the cavity;
a plurality of fastener assemblies that each fastens a location on one of said panels to said rack, each fastener assembly including a screw that extends through one of said panel holes and a nut that is threadably engaged with the screw, the nut lying in said cavity and having nut opposite ends that each presses forwardly against one of said flange surfaces;
each of said struts is of constant cross-section along its height and forms a column portion of increased thickness at a side of said mount portion that adds to the buckling resistance of the strut and that is integral with said front mount portion.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.