Modified shipping container

Abstract

A shipping container for transporting cargo, comprising a track having a rectangular floor and vertical stanchions mounted at its comers with two opposite end walls extending therebetween, and one or more side walls having side edges with at least a portion corresponding in shape to the stanchions to interact therewith for detachably attaching the, or each, side wall to the track to form a roofless container.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to freight conveyance containers and in particular, to platform based freight containers.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Several types of containers for transporting freight on ships, trains, trucks and other long distance transportation means, are known. These shipping containers have long been standardized, and therefore they normally have the same external dimensions so they can be conveniently stored together and stacked on top of one another, for maximum cargo space utilization.

Various types of shipping containers are differentiated by different types of freight to be transferred and the requirements associated therewith.

When the freight is in the form of commodities shipped in bundles, cartons, boxes, loose cargo, bulk, furniture, etc., a so-called “high cube” or “dry van” container is used, namely a parallelepiped container with six rectangular faces and lockable doors in one of the faces, for loading and unloading the freight.

For carrying awkward and oversize loads such as cables, sheets and large coils, heavy vehicles, timber products, etc, a so-called “flatrack” container is used. A flatrack consists of a floor structure with a high loading capacity composed of a steel frame, a softwood floor and two end walls. The end walls are formed with stanchions mounted to the floor, for attaching the end walls thereto. The stanchions are strong enough to allow cargo securing means to be attached thereto and to allow several flatracks to be stacked on top of one another.

Flatracks are often designed in a collapsible manner with the stanchions pivotally mounted on the floor, to allow the end walls to be folded from an erect position perpendicular to the floor, to a substantially flat position parallel to the floor and adjacent thereto. A collapsible flatrack is advantageous over non-collapsible containers, such as the “high cube” containers, due to the space saving when empty containers are transported.

Sometimes, an “open top” container which is similar to the “high cube” container but with no roof, is used. “Open top” containers are used for carrying heaps of material or for large and awkward cargo that is too big to fit into a standard “high cube”.

Several patents refer to collapsible “open top” containers that combine collapsibility and protection as desired. Some of them, such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,570,698 by Dougherty, U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,640 by Nessfield et. al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,177,907 by Funaioli et. al. disclose “open top” containers with foldable side walls hingedly attached to the floor of the container, thereby enabling folding the container to a flat form as desired.

When the cargo is large and/or heavy and cumbersome and at the same time fragile and sensitive, as is the case with, for example, large panels of glass, it is preferably conveyed in an “open top” container. This container is preferable over a flatrack container due to the better side protection with which it provides the cargo. In addition, large panels of glass may break during conveyance, therefore side walls are required for preventing the glass fragments from accidentally hitting people or equipment disposed adjacent thereto. However, such large cargo can be conveniently loaded onto an “open top” container only through its roofless top, using a crane or other heavy-duty equipment.

Loading heavy and large, yet fragile glass panels, in an “open top” container typically involves fixedly placing a mobile construction on the floor of the container and stacking the glass panels thereonto by lowering them from above through the open top, using a crane. This usually requires a worker to stand inside the container, nearby the mobile construction, for ultimate arrangement of the panels on the construction and for securing the panels to the construction by ropes or other means. This job is potentially hazardous as the worker can be accidentally injured by the glass panels or even captured and squeezed between the glass panels and the side walls of the container, especially in the case of an error by a non-skilled crane operator.

In addition, unlike forklifts, cranes are costly and space-consuming and, therefore, not commonly owned by small or even medium sized businesses. This is not only an issue for the shipper but also for the customer who must use a crane to unload such freight.

Routinely, a shipper does not necessarily use the same shipping containers for all his transports. Typically, the shipping company has a large pool of shipping containers of different kinds that are used according to transportation needs for a plurality of shippers around the world.

Since shipping containers are standardized as aforementioned, the inventory of same is large enough to provide the shippers with a sufficient supply of whichever containers are required, and high efficiency in containers usage is accomplished.

When shipping containers of a special type are used, the efficiency of container's usage is reduced as when such a special container is used for conveying cargo, say, from London to New York, it must be shipped back from New York to London before reusing it.

WO 02/28747 refers to an extension module for use mostly with “open top” containers, to be assembled on top of it for sealing the container's top when desired and for increasing its volume. WO 02/28747 shows that the extension module may be used with flatrack containers too, to seal their tops and, possibly, to hold side wall panels if required.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a freight-shipping container, combining the advantages of a flatrack, such as ease of loading and collapsibility, with the possibility of side protection of freight, not inferior to the protection provided by an “open top” container. The shipping container combines these advantages based on a standard flatrack, or a flatrack-like shipping container, without requiring modification thereto.

As discussed hereinbefore, most shipping containers have long been standardized, however, freight may be sporadically transported in non-standardized containers. These containers may have a general form of the standard containers but may vary in some parameters such as external dimensions or the like. For the sake of convenience, reference will be made hereinafter to standard types of containers, by way of a non limiting example only, whilst it should be borne in mind that the present invention refers also to non-standard containers having the same essential features.

The freight-shipping container of the present invention comprises a standard flatrack, retrofitted with one or more side walls detachably attachable, for protecting a cargo.

Standard flatracks comprise a rectangular floor having four vertical elongated stanchions mounted at the corners of the floor, and two end walls extending therebetween.

The stanchions may be stationary or pivotally mounted to the flatrack's floor, enabling the end walls to be folded between an erect position for use when the flatrack is loaded, and a flat position, which is useful when empty flatracks are conveyed one on top of the other.

The U-shaped portion may protrude from the remainder of the edge of the side wall, may be produced as a separate member mounted to the edge of the side wall, e.g. by bolts or rivets or by welding or brazing, or it may be formed integrally with the side wall.

The side walls of the shipping container of the present invention each have side edges corresponding in shape to the stanchions to slidingly interact therewith, for detachably attaching the side walls to the flatrack. For this purpose, each of the side edges is formed with at least a portion having a U-shaped cross-section (hereinafter ‘U-shaped portion’), along at least a part of its length. This U-shaped portion is adapted to slidingly receive the stanchions therein, upon the assembly of the side walls to the flatrack, the sliding direction being along the longitudinal axis of the stanchions.

Forming the side edges of the side walls with U-shaped portions prevents the movement of the side walls, when attached to the flatrack, in any direction other than the direction of sliding. In other words, after a side wall has been attached to the flatrack, by slidingly lowering it onto two associated stanchions along their longitudinal axes, the only way to dissemble them is by sliding raising the side wall.

The side walls may be integrally formed with at least one grasping member such as a ring, a hook or the like, wherefrom the side walls can be held for lowering them onto the stanchions to have the U-shaped portions of the side edges slidingly interact therewith.

The attachment of the side walls to the flatrack may be strengthened by various means. For example, the side walls may be designed with projections on their bottom edges adapted to be received in holes formed in the periphery of the floor of the flatrack originally designed for securing cargo thereto. The projections may be integrally formed with the bottom edges of the side walls. Alternatively, the side walls may be formed with, or have fixed thereto, a track along their bottom edge and the projections may be formed on a projection carrier movingly engaged with the track to suit locations of the holes in the flatrack's floor. Further, in standard flatracks, each of the stanchions has a bore in its top. These bores may also be used for strengthening the attachment of the side walls to the flatrack. For instance, the side walls may be formed with connection members such as hooks attached to each of their top corners, adapted to be received in the bores when the side walls are mounted on the flatrack. Another method for strengthening the attachment of the side walls to the flatrack is by using strengthening members such as bolts screwed in holes formed in the U-shaped portion so as to abut the stanchion therefor.

It must be borne in mind that other methods for attaching the side walls to the stanchions are applicable, different from using a U-shaped portion slidingly interacting with the stanchions. These methods include, but are not limited to, hooks and rings, O-shaped side edges, latches, and so forth.

Advantages of the shipping container of present invention include inter alia the possibility of side protection of cargo loaded thereon along with ease of loading and unloading at significantly low cost. As the shipping container of the present invention may comprise a standard flatrack, which is a ubiquitous in the shipping industry, the shipper is not limited to an exclusive type of container.

In accordance with another aspect of the present invention there is provided a side wall for attaching to a standard flatrack, or a flatrack-like container, whether collapsible or not, with no need for modification of either the flatrack or the side wall. The side wall, as described above, is very simply constructed and therefore easy to manufacture, handle and transport and very inexpensive to produce. It is also comparatively lightweight and simple-shaped and can therefore be easily and economically shipped back for reuse.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to understand the invention and to see how it may be carried out in practice, embodiments will now be described, by way of non-limiting example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a standard flatrack with a side wall according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of a shipping container according to one embodiment of the present invention, comprising the flatrack and the side wall shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 2B is a perspective view of a shipping container according to another embodiment of the present invention, having corrugated side walls;

FIGS. 3A to 3D depict several alternative shapes for U-shaped portions of the side walls of the containers shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B; and

FIG. 4 is an enlarged view of a bottom area of a side wall of a container according to a further embodiment of the present invention, with a projection carrier slidingly moveable therealong.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring to FIG. 1, retrofitting a standard flatrack 5 with a detachably attachable side wall 50 is illustrated, to obtain a shipping container 1 according to one embodiment of the present invention as shown in FIG. 2A. FIG. 2B shows a shipping container 1′ according to another embodiment of the present invention, which comprises the same standard flatrack 5 and in which side walls 50′ are corrugated so as to gain strength and rigidity without increasing weight. Since the containers 1 and 1′ are identical in their manner of mounting the side walls 50, 50′ on the flatrack 5, in further description hereinbelow only the container 1 will be referred to.

The flatrack 5 comprises a rectangular floor 10 having two side edges 15 and two end edges 20 intersecting with the side edges at four corners 25.

Four vertical stanchions 30 having rectangular cross-section are mounted on the floor 10 at the corners 25 and two vertical end walls 35 extend therebetween along the end edges 20 of the floor 10. The stanchions 30 are strong enough to support other containers (not shown) if stacked on the flatrack 5 and to enable securing cargo thereto. The stanchions 30 are formed with holes 40 on their tops, typically used for securing a container (not shown) stacked on the flatrack 5. The floor 10 is formed with holes 45 to enable further securing of cargo thereto, for instance by lashing.

The side wall 50 has a generally planar and rectangular shape with a top edge 55, a bottom edge 60 and two side edges 65. The distance between the two side edges 65 is substantially equal to the distance between the stanchions 30 of flatrack 5, and the distance between the bottom edge 60 and the top edge 55 may equal the length of the stanchions 30 as shown in FIG. 1 or may be greater or smaller than the stanchions.

Each of the side edges 65 of the side wall 50 is formed, along a part of its length, with a U-shaped portion 75 corresponding in shape with the stanchions 30 of the flatrack 5. The portion 75 is in the form of a U-shaped member attached to the side edge 65, e.g. by bolts or rivets 76 to protrude from the remainder of the side edge 65.

Other ways to form the U-shaped portion 75 are possible and examples are illustrated in FIGS. 3A to 3D. In FIG. 3A a portion 75A is formed in the same way as in FIG. 1 but it extends along the entire length of the side edge 65 and includes tightening members in the form of two bolts 74 screwed in threaded holes formed in the U-shaped portion 75A so as to abut the stanchion 30 (FIGS. 2A and 2B). FIG. 3B shows a U-shaped portion 75B formed by bending the side edge of the side wall 50 along its vertical axis to form one arm 78 of the U-shaped portion and attaching a separate member 77, e.g. by bolts or rivets 79, to form the other arm of the U-shaped portion. FIG. 3C shows a U-shaped portion 75C integrally formed with the side wall 50. In FIG. 3D, the U-shaped portion is combined of two separate members 75D and 75E, both of which are attached to the side edge 65 by welding and therefore require no bolts or rivets.

Reverting now to FIG. 1, the side wall 50 is integrally formed with a grasping ring 80 disposed on or adjacent to the top edge 55, enabling holding the side wall therewith when mounting it on or disassembling it from the flatrack 5.

Projections 85 are formed at the bottom edge 60 of the side wall 50 for being received in the peripheral holes 45 on the floor 10 of the flatrack 5 upon mounting the side wall on the flatrack.

Referring to FIG. 4, an alternative to the projection 85 is shown; namely a projection carrier 87 formed with a projection 85′. The projection carrier 87 allows for the adjustment of the location of projection 85′ along the bottom edge 60 of the side wall 50, to suit the location of holes 45 in the floor 10 (FIG. 1). To receive the projection carrier 87, the bottom edge 60 of the side wall 50 is formed with a track 95, along which the projection carrier 87 is adapted to slide. The track 95 shown in FIG. 4 is T-shaped with the projection carrier 87 having a mating recess 88. However, the track and the projection carrier may have any other suitable configuration.

Reverting again to FIG. 1, a hook 90 is formed in each of the top comers 70 of the side wall 50 for engaging with the bores 40 at the tops of the stanchions 30 upon mounting the side wall on the flatrack.

Attaching the side wall 50 to the flatrack 5 is accomplished by holding the side wall 50 by means of the grasping ring 80, possibly using a forklift, and lowering it in the direction of an arrow R such that the stanchions 30 are slidingly received within the U-shaped portions 75 protruding from side edges 65 of the side wall.

The shipping container 1 with the side walls 50 mounted as described above is believed to be strong enough to provide cargo loaded thereon with protection comparable to that provided by standard “open top” shipping containers. Stabilizing the side walls 50 to the flatrack 5 by the projections 85 received in the peripheral holes (FIG. 1), and by the hooks 90 received in the holes 40 at the tops of stanchions 30, may provide the cargo with even enhanced protection.

The shipping container 1 of the present invention may be used for transporting any cargo but it is particularly advantageous for large and awkward yet fragile cargo such as large glass panels, which may be loaded on, and unloaded from, the shipping container, using merely a forklift.

It should be understood that the above description of the container according to the present invention is merely explanatory and different modifications and variations of the container may exist within the scope of the claims.

For example, the side walls 50 of the shipping container 1 of the present invention, may be formed of a rigid material such as steel or rigid polymers, may combine a rigid frame with a soft panel such as fabric, or even be made of a soft material with no supporting frame at all, as long as the cargo is protected as required. Likewise, the side walls can be mounted in an inclined position, and may have convex or concave shape as the shipper desires.

Claims

1. A shipping container for transporting cargo, comprising a track having a rectangular floor and vertical stanchions mounted at its comers with two opposite end walls extending therebetween, and one or more side walls having side edges with at least a portion corresponding in shape to said stanchions to interact therewith for detachably attaching the, or each, side wall to the track to form a roofless container.

2. A shipping container according to claim 1, wherein said side edges are adapted to slidingly interact with said stanchions.

3. A shipping container according to claim 1, wherein said track is a standard flatrack.

4. A shipping container according to claim 1, wherein said stanchions are pivotally mounted to said floor, enabling said end walls to be folded from an erect position to a flat position.

5. A shipping container according to claim 1, wherein said one or more side walls are planar.

6. A shipping container according to claim 1, wherein there are two side walls.

7. A shipping container according to claim 2, wherein each of said stanchions has a longitudinal axis and the sliding direction is along said longitudinal axis.

8. A shipping container according to claim 7, wherein said side edges of the side walls are so shaped as to prevent movement of the side walls, when attached to said track, in any direction other than said sliding direction.

9. A shipping container according to claim 2, wherein each of said side edges is formed, along at least a part of its length, with a portion having a U-shaped cross-section, adapted to slidingly receive therein said stanchions upon attaching the side wall to said track.

10. A shipping container according to claim 9, wherein each of the portions having a U-shaped cross-section is a U-shaped member attached to said side edge.

11. A shipping container according to claim 1, wherein each of said side walls is integrally formed with at least one grasping member for carrying said side wall.

12. A shipping container according to claim 1, wherein said floor has at least one peripheral hole, said one or more side walls each having a bottom edge formed with at least one projection shaped to be received in said hole.

13. A shipping container according to claim 1, wherein at least one of said stanchions has a bore in its top and wherein at least one of said side walls is formed with a connection member adapted to be received in said bore.

14. A side wall detachably attachable to a cargo transporting track, the track having a substantially rectangular floor with vertical stanchions mounted at its four corners and two opposite end walls extending therebetween, wherein said side wall has side edges each having at least a portion corresponding in shape to said stanchions to slidingly interact therewith for detachably attaching the side wall to the track.

15. A side wall according to claim 14, wherein said side edges are adapted to slidingly interact with said stanchions.

16. A side wall according to claim 14, wherein said track is a standard flatrack.

17. A side wall according to claim 14, wherein said side wall is planar.

18. A side wall according to claim 15, wherein each of said stanchions has a longitudinal axis and the sliding direction is along said longitudinal axis.

19. A side wall according to claim 15, wherein said side edges of the side wall are so shaped as to prevent movement of the side wall, when attached to said track, in any direction other than said sliding direction.

20. A side wall according to claim 15, wherein each of said side edges is formed, along at least a part of its length, with a portion having a U-shaped cross-section, adapted to slidingly receive therein said stanchions upon attaching the side wall to said track.

21. A side wall according to claim 20, wherein each of said U-shaped cross-sectioned portions is a U-shaped member attached to said side edge.

22. A side wall according to claim 14, wherein said side wall is integrally formed with at least one grasping member for carrying said side wall.

23. A side wall according to claim 14, wherein said floor has at least one peripheral hole and said side wall has a bottom edge, formed with at least one projection shaped to be received in said hole.

24. A side wall according to claim 14, wherein at least one of said stanchions has a bore in its top and wherein said side wall is formed with at least one connection member adapted to be received in said bores.

25. A method for converting a standard flatrack having a rectangular floor with vertical stanchions mounted at its four corners and two opposite end walls extending therebetween, into an open-top container, said method comprising providing one or more detachable side walls each having side edges with at least a portion corresponding in shape to said stanchions, and detachably attaching the side wall to the flatrack by providing sliding interaction between the side edges of the or each side wall with the stanchions of the flatrack.