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US 5,848,867 AGranted
Storage rack with overhead loading and unloading
OwnerPierre Gagnon, Pierre Laforestinventors
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OwnerPierre Gagnon, Pierre Laforestinventors
Estimating the term…
A storage rack is loaded and unloaded from the top with pallets carrying articles to be stored in and retrieved from the rack. The rack consists of a series of spaced columns arranged in parallel rows defining wells accessible from the top; the columns have vertically spaced, upwardly facing sets of steps protruding to an equal extent towards the centre of the wells. A crane is horizontally movable over the rack and stoppable above a selected well; it has a hoisting block which can be lowered between and guided by the columns of the selected well; a pair of hooks are pivoted to the hoisting block for movement towards and away from each other between opened and closed position; a pair of Z-shaped pallet holding beams adapted to carry a series of pallets aligned in end to end relation are suspended from the hooks and clear the steps when in closed position. When the desired set of steps is reached, the hooks are opened causing spreading apart of the top portion of the Z beams to allow their hooking unto these steps. The reverse operation is effected for unloading. The hooks can handle the Z beams to pick up the aligned pallets from and deposit them onto a supporting surface. The system is particularly designed for loading green concrete blocks into and unloading cured concrete blocks from a curing kiln housing the rack. Preferably, the green blocks are left in the stored position between the columns of the kiln just to attain sufficient compressive strength; they are then unloaded and directly stacked on the floor beside the rack within the kiln with the intermediary only of the pallets for completion of the curing process in the kiln; thus the number of columns and Z beams can be decreased without reducing the effective curing capacity of the kiln. Also, the provision of a Z beams accumulating device is no longer required.
The combination of a storage rack and of a loading and unloading system for article-carrying pallets to be stored within and retrieved from said storage rack, said storage rack comprising a plurality of spaced columns arranged in parallel rows to form several open top elongated storage wells disposed side by side, the columns on each side of any one well having a series of vertically spaced upwardly facing steps equally protruding from said columns towards the centre of said well, said steps forming sets of steps which are at the same level;
The combination as defined in claim further including levelling means to level the assembly of interconnected sub-blocks.
The combination of a storage rack and of a loading and unloading system for article-carrying pallets to be stored and retrieved from said storage rack, said storage rack defining vertical elongated wells arranged side by side in parallel rows and delimited by parallel rows of columns, each well being of uniform width and length and fully opened at the top, said loading and unloading system including crane means including a travelling bridge and a hoisting block and movable over and across said storage rack, said hoisting block operable to hoist or lower an article-carrying pallet from and onto support surfaces outside of said storage rack, move said pallet over said storage rack in vertical register with any selected well and then lower or hoist said article-carrying pallet down or up said well to or from a selected level and further including means carried by said hoisting block and actuated from said travelling bridge to lock and unlock said pallet within said well at said level.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.