Ridg-u-rak, Inc.

Theodore S Gorniak

John H Zelina, Jr

James A Courtwright

John B Pellegrino

A push back storage rack system for storing multiple loads in a single inclined cart lane. Each lane contains at least two wheeled carts, each cart being capable of receiving and storing multiple pallet loads. The carts are vertically spaced so that they can freely slide underneath each other when unloaded. Beginning with the first or lowest level cart in the system, each successively higher cart is also wider and longer than the cart immediately beneath it. The carts are positioned on at least one but potentially two pairs of rectangular tracks or tubes, each tube being capable of supporting two or four individual carts, depending on how the carts are constructed and installed on the tubes. The tubes are mounted on an incline away from a loading end of each lane so that when loads are placed on or are removed from a lane, the carts are biased toward the loading end of the lane by the force of gravity. Each tube has a single, planar upper support surface which has inside and outside edges. The wheels of each cart ride only on either the inside or outside edges of the tubes on which they are mounted, allowing more than one vertically spaced cart to occupy the same tube.

Push back storage rack system

A wheel and axle assembly for a material handling cart has a wheel with a bearing and an axle that extends through the bearing. The axle has a bolt cavity with female cavity threads and an inside tapered portion. A bolt having male bolt threads and an outside tapered portion engages the female cavity threads. The head of the bolt has a head diameter that is greater than the inside diameter of the bearing and therefore locks the bolt in position. When the outside tapered portion of the bolt contacts the inside tapered portion of the bolt cavity, the head of the bolt locks the bearing against a shoulder of the axle. To prevent the bolt from loosening its engagement with the bolt cavity, a locking material is added to the male threads of the bolt.

Bolted axle wheel assembly

A conveyor system has a load support structure which enables loads to be moved along the conveyor. The load support structure has an input position at which loads can be placed into the conveyor system, an unload position at which loads can be removed from the conveyor system and a load storage area located between the input position and the unload position. The conveyor system also includes a plurality of sensors including an input sensor which senses when a load is at the input position, an unload sensor which senses when a load is at the unload position, and a filled sensor which determines when a pre-selected portion of the load structure has been filled with loads. A propulsion system moves loads along the load support structure. One such propulsion system includes a tram which reciprocates along the load support system. A control system responds to the sensors to cause the propulsion system to move one or more loads to the unload position whenever the unload position is empty. It also causes the propulsion system to move a load from the input position to the storage area when the unload position is full, until such time as the filled sensor determines the pre-selected portion of the conveyor support structure has been filled.

Powered conveyor system

An adjustable, shelf hanging clip for hanging shelves on storage racks is constructed from at least two rectangular sections of material joined at an angle which can be about 90&deg;. At least one of these rectangular sections has a pair of hook-shaped support and latching tabs extending from its exterior surface, with the ends of the tabs extending toward one another. The hook shaped tabs are adapted to be received into a pair of adjacent, vertically spaced holes in the columns of the storage racks. The hook of the upper tab fits over the bottom of the upper hole so that the top inside surface of the hook is the bearing surface and the outside surface of the lower tab is the bearing surface on the bottom of the lower hole. The other rectangular section of the clip has a notch at each of its ends. The bottom surface of each notch is a separate, preselected longitudinal distance from the inside bearing surface of the nearest tab. Thus, the clip can be turned around and installed in the same vertically spaced holes on storage rack columns to adjust the height of the storage rack. The clip can have additional adjustment heights by fabricating an additional pair of similarly arranged hook tabs on each of one or more additional rectangular sections of the clip and cutting notches in the ends of adjacent rectangular sections which are additional, different longitudinal distances from the inside bearing surfaces of these tabs.

Growing community of inventors

North East, PA, United States of America

Theodore S Gorniak