The customer was shipping 30”, 36” and 40” raw steel wheel casting from Germany to their facility in the United States for machining. The machine castings were sent to a subcontractor on wood pallets to have tires mounted on the wheels- then returned by truck or flat bed rail cars. The wood pallets would not stand up to more than one trip.
The customer considered steel pallets, but decided the extra weight and special protective cushion packaging that was required on all contact surfaces was not practical. They began looking at a plastic. Structural foam and injection molding tooling costs were prohibitive. Vacuum forming would not provide the strength. So they chose rotationally molded custom pallets because of low cost tooling and selected Thermodynamics because of our extensive experience in reinforced pallets for heavy duty applications.
An 84” x 44” pallet was designed to fit all three diameters of wheels. With molded locators on the top of the deck and molded pockets in the bottom to capture the units, without the use of banding when stacked. A special steel frame capable of holding the weight of eight wheels each weighing up to 2500 pounds was encapsulated inside of the pallet during the molding process.
Pallet performance exceeded expectations – supportingload requirements of 10,000 lbs when shipped two high in trailers, 20,000 lbs when stacked four high in the warehousing area and 5000 lbs when conveyed.
The steel frame used in the pallet weighed 150 pounds and the plastic molded around the frame was 100 pounds, for a finished weight of 250 pounds. This pallet proved to be a successful conversion from wood and the customer continues to reorder pallets.
Specifications: 84” long x 44” wide, steel reinforced with top deck profile for wheel castings 4 way fork lift entry Dynamic – 5,000 lbs Static – 20,000 lbs |
