Thermally insulated shipping container with layered articulating vacuum insulated panels
AssigneePelican Biothermal LLC
InventorKai Goellner
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A kit from which a thermally insulated shipping container may be assembled and a thermally insulated shipping container assembled from such a kit. The kit includes an outer shell and four flat stock vacuum insulated panels, each with three articulating sections foldable to form 3-dimensional C-shaped units. The panels are nestable pairs effective for lining a lower portion of the outer shell with a first nested pair and lining an upper portion of the outer shell with a second nested pair so as to form a fully enclosed insulated payload chamber within the outer shell.
Claims17
A thermally insulated shipping container, comprising:
- (a) an outer shell having a bottom, sidewalls and an openable top, and defining a volume,
- (b) a lower box-portion of thermal insulation lining the bottom and lower portions of the sidewalls of the outer shell, the lower box portion of thermal insulation comprising nested first and second C-shaped units wherein each C-shaped unit is formed from a flat stock rectangular cuboidal vacuum insulated panel having a linear row of one central and two distal rigid articulating panel sections, and
- (c) an upper box-portion of thermal insulation covering the openable top and lining upper portions of the sidewalls of the outer shell, the upper box portion of thermal insulation comprising nested third and fourth C-shaped units wherein each C-shaped unit is formed from a flat stock rectangular cuboidal vacuum insulated panel having a linear row of one central and two distal rigid articulating panel sections.
A thermally insulated shipping container, comprising:
- (a) an outer shell defining a volume,
- (b) a lower box-portion of thermal insulation and an upper box portion of thermal insulation lining the volume, together forming a fully enclosed thermally insulated payload chamber,
- (c) each box-portion having nested primary and secondary C-shaped units wherein each C-shaped unit is formed from a flat stock rectangular cuboidal vacuum insulated panel having a linear row of one central and two distal rigid articulating panel sections,
- (d) wherein (i) the central panel section on each vacuum insulated panel has two transversely spaced major surfaces, a pair of longitudinally spaced 45° beveled facing edges and a pair of laterally spaced orthogonal side edges, (ii) the distal panel sections on each vacuum insulated panel each have two transversely spaced major surfaces, a beveled facing edge, an orthogonal exposed end edge longitudinally spaced from the beveled facing edge, and a pair of laterally spaced orthogonal side edges, and
- (e) wherein the secondary C-shaped unit is sized, configured and arranged relative to the primary C-shaped unit that the side edges of the two distal panel sections on the secondary C-shaped unit abut a major surface of a distal panel section on the primary C-shaped unit when the units are nested with a 90° rotation of the secondary C-shaped unit relative to the primary C-shaped unit so as to rotationally offset the distal panel sections on the primary and secondary C-shaped units.
A kit from which a thermally insulated shipping container may be assembled, the kit comprising:
- (a) an outer shell having a bottom, sidewalls and an openable top, and defining a volume,
- (b) four flat stock rectangular cuboidal vacuum insulated panels, each having a linear row of one central and two distal rigid articulating panel sections capable of being folded into a 3-dimenisonal C-shaped unit, wherein
- (c) the four flat stock rectangular cuboidal vacuum insulated panels are configured and arranged such that when folded into 3-dimenisonal C-shaped units a first unit can nest within a second unit to form a lower box-portion of thermal insulation sized for lining the bottom and a lower portion of the sidewalls of the volume, and a third unit can nest within a fourth unit to form an upper box-portion of thermal insulation sized for covering the open top and lining an upper portion of the sidewalls of the volume.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.