US 5,857,416 AGranted

Molded pallet having corrugated deck with leak identification and retention

AssigneePolymerpallet Corp.

InventorsEmerson B. Donnell, Jr., Didier Winkelmann

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Abstract

A plastic molded pallet includes a corrugated deck providing structural rigidity to the pallet and forming channels for directing leaking fluid away from drums. The pallet also includes a plurality of troughs for selectively collecting the leaking fluid from the channels. Corner troughs flush with the channels collect the leaking fluid from any channel having the fluid. If a corner trough overflows, mid-section troughs on each side of the corner trough begin to collect the overflowing fluid after the overflowing fluid reaches over the mid-section trough dam. If both mid-section troughs are filled, the leaking fluid then proceeds to the next adjacent corner trough, during which time the leaking drum can still be identified based upon the leakage pattern. After all corner and mid-section troughs are filled, the fluid begins collecting in a center trough. The corrugations in the deck isolate the leaking fluid from the drums, and provide concentric surfaces for supporting different-sized drums.

Claims23

Dependent claims

A molded pallet comprising:

a pallet deck having quadrants, each quadrant for accommodating a drum, each quadrant having a first dam having a first dam height for isolating fluid leaking from the accommodated drum from adjacent quadrants, each quadrant further having a set of channels formed in the pallet deck for directing the fluid away from the leaking drum;
a corner trough positioned at each corner of the pallet for a corresponding quadrant, each trough collecting the fluid from the corresponding quadrants set of channels;
a mid-section trough positioned between each two adjacent quadrants having a set of second dams between the mid-section troughs and the sets of channels of the adjacent quadrants having a second dam height, less than the first dam height, for collecting leaking fluid having exceeded the second dam height from at least one of the corresponding two adjacent quadrants;
and
a center trough positioned at a center of the pallet and a set of third dams between the center trough and the sets of channels of each quadrant having a third dam height, greater than the second dam height and less than the first dam height, for collecting leaking fluid having exceeded the third dam height from at least one of the quadrants.

2 more elements

A molded pallet comprising:

a pallet deck having:
a set of first dams defining quadrants, each set for isolating fluid from an accommodated leaking drum,
a first set of parallel corrugations having edges extending in a longitudinal direction parallel to an edge of the pallet and spaced across a transverse direction of the pallet, at least a portion of the first set of parallel corrugations extending into longitudinally adjacent quadrants,
a second set of parallel corrugations having edges extending in the transverse direction and spaced across the longitudinal direction, at least a portion of the second set of parallel corrugations extending into transversely adjacent quadrants, and
a support surface in each quadrant, each support surface positioned between the first and the second sets of parallel corrugations in the corresponding quadrant and extending in a third direction bisecting the corresponding quadrant between a center of the pallet and a corner of the pallet,
wherein said support surface and the first and second set of parallel corrugations in each quadrant are spaced to form channels for directing leaking fluid away from a drum;
corner troughs positioned at each corner of the pallet for collecting the leaking fluid from the channels of the quadrant;
and
mid-section troughs, each positioned at a boundary of two adjacent quadrants and in communication with at least one of the channels of each adjacent quadrant, for collecting leaking fluid having overflowed at least one of the corner troughs and said at least one channel of an adjacent quadrant.

6 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.