Holders for article-carrying pallets and system for loading and unloading a storage rack with such pallets

摘要

A pair of spaced, parallel beams are designed to hold a group of aligned, contiguous article carrying pallets. Each beam has a web of uniform width with a lower, inturned flange to extend under the side edges of the aligned pallets and an upper outturned flange to be picked up by the pivoted jaws of a crane. These jaws together with a pusher/puller carriage are mounted on a long frame suspended from the crane which travels across one face of a rack in which pairs of parallel tracks are arranged in a grid. The pair of jaws, carrying the beams or pallet holders are closed to position the latter under the sides of a group of aligned, contiguous, article carrying pallets assembled at a pick-up station. The pallet carrying holders are aligned by the crane with any selected pair of tracks. One end of the frame latches to the rack and the pusher-puller carriage latches to one end of the pallet holders and pushes the same and their load off the jaws and onto the tracks. In a reverse operation, the pallet holders and their load are pulled off a pair of tracks by the carriage and transferred onto the closed jaws. The crane transports the holders and the group of article carrying pallets, to a delivery station where the jaws open to deposit the pallets. The system is designed for loading uncured concrete blocks into and unloading cured blocks from a curing kiln housing the rack.