I'm here to ask you for a little help with the sizing of a mechanically welded steel pallet.
I have to make a pallet size 1400 x 1400 mm in steel that will support 7.6T divided into 4 zones. Having in my company only the basic version of SolidWorks, I can't do a simulation to size this pallet. So I have a distributed force of 3877 daN/m² if my calculations are correct.
I would go for a UPN 100 pallet for the decking as well as the legs.
Could someone confirm this section and the number of blades and feet I have to put in.
At first glance, it seems coherent to me. You just have to make a frame, taking that it's the 100mm that takes the load. A pair of spars with the same profile. Legs with plates on the periphery and under the spars. Eventually, a sheet metal that covers the whole. And that's it.
Give me your ASM file and I'll do the simulation for you.
Only specifies whether there can be two layers of kegs or not.
To complete @contact_168 's remark (which I salute by the way) I suggest you actually put two extra feet because you will never know what the operators and the carrists will do who are not always extremely delicate in the manipulations. for there is nothing to prevent them from putting three shafts and putting the third one precisely where there is no foot.
In addition, I often say it on this forum, for loads distant from the floor, you also have to define the maximum allowed overhang. 1°) because a lot of transpal tilts the load backwards before moving forward and in addition the fenwik can be led to overcome a bit of a significant slope and the pallet has to take all this.
What we can remember is that I put the mass on a surface equal to the diameter of 4 barrels. But only a very small part of the bottom of the drum is 200 liter rolled steel sheet with a Ø 585 mm, height 880 mm and thickness 1 mm. The fulcrum is theoretically a point, but in order not to push the cork too far I put a 10 mm support. Either an inner diameter of 565 mm. This creates more constraints than if we put the mass distributed over the entire surface of the beams. This seems to me to be more accurate in relation to reality!
What I remember is the deformations of 2.5 mm (in static) but a safety factor of about 4 but with weak points that would deserve to be taken into consideration.
AMHA if I were you I wouldn't reduce the cross-section of the beams but I would put gussets placed in potentially critical places.
The only point in your design that I will revisit is the way the legs are attached. The fork spacing of the Fenwicks is standard for Euro pallets but you have put central feet that are precisely in the path of the forks.
Indeed, I don't give much foot with the basic forklift operator if he rips the pallet horizontally to clear it as I see it all the time everywhere. We could also simulate the resistance of the feet with cases of misuse.
But you're the designer, I'm only doing an indicative simulation ;-)
Are you sure of the mass of each of your kegs when they are full? What is the material contained in the barrel (without indiscretion it is to check the total mass)
Kind regards
I added a horizontal force of 1000 N on the foot at the bottom right, it doesn't change much but it would be necessary to calculate the force necessary for the sliding of the whole to apply the right effort on the foot. But is it really necessary since you say nothing about welding?
To answer your question, this pallet is used to store barrels for 30 years whose contents I don't know. There will be 4 stacked pallets that will not move anymore so they will be handled only once. The total mass experienced by the first pallet is 7.6T + 3 times the mass of a pallet.
Thank you ;-) For these clarifications I better understand the position of the central legs which are therefore at the tangency point of two shafts each. On the other hand, you have two feet that will be in the void between the ground floor and the first and between the first and the second. You should simulate the whole thing so that you can be sure that everything is OK because it must change the game a bit!
Did you have time to take a look at the results of the simulation?
Yes, thank you for your static study. It confirms my choice of section, I will also follow your advice and add a gusset to the 4 corners along a U wing.
<HS climatic>: no boo-boo for me but it happened close. Seen from a distance it seems monstrous but geographically speaking, it's very local.</HS climatic>
We are talking about the problem of stacking: it is the drums that bear the weight of the stack. A "small" spacer between the pallets would be welcome, it seems to me.
A spacer is not necessarily necessary according to the calculations (which only partially take into account the solidity of the drums because I don't know the model that will be used but I have drawn a standard model without a rim).
No! As @ronathandoesn't seem to be about to come back, I give the two points that for me are not correct. 1°) to put the first stage you can't use Fenwick because the forks can't go anywhere. Which would imply having a keg stacker with a stacking two kegs by two kegs on the top floor is not going to be glop. You would need something under the feet like in wooden pallets or steel wire bin pallets. Note that from the first floor the legs are no longer useful ;-)
2°) When I see this type of storage at CIRES, the drums for TFA waste are almost glued to each other because storage space is expensive. Currently, with the dimensions of the pallet @ronathan for it to resist and for the drums to rest on the pallet, they cannot be tangent to each other.
But hey, it's not the request of @ronathan that we give our opinion on the design. But between us it doesn't prevent us from asking ourselves questions ;-) ;-) ;-) If I'm off the mark, I'll always learn something!
Sorry to answer late but I'm running out of time at the moment.
In fact, to be more specific with you, I don't have much information on this subject. I was only asked to estimate 250 galvanized steel pallets of 1400x1400 that can withstand a total load of 8T (sum of the 4 floors of drums) and this for storage for 30 years.
I can't afford today to spend time on a design for a deal that I might not have, so that's why I'm doing a big sizing (because you have to start with something at some point). Now I understand that the calculations pushed on my 3D model are not entirely correct. Nevertheless, for my costing, I must not be far from the truth?
