Cardboard Load Support Device with Interlocking Corner Folds
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current load support devices, such as wooden and cardboard pallets, face issues with recyclability, ecological impact, solidity, and handling due to their weight and material limitations, with alternatives failing to provide a satisfactory strength-to-weight ratio and cost-effectiveness.
Innovation Solution
A load support device made from corrugated cardboard with interlocking folds and external reinforcement elements, which creates a sturdy and lightweight structure without the need for solvents, allowing for easy assembly and disassembly, and can support high loads while being recyclable and cost-effective.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Weight of moving object
If cardboard material is used to replace wood for load support devices, then the device becomes lighter and more recyclable, but the solidity and resistance to high loads deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The invention uses corrugated cardboard as a composite material structure that combines multiple layers of paper with fluted air pockets between them. This composite structure provides both lightness and sufficient strength to replace traditional wooden pallets while maintaining load-bearing capacity.
Solution Approach 2:
The invention applies local reinforcement by creating triple thickness at critical corner zones through overlapping flaps. This localized thickening provides enhanced strength exactly where loads are most concentrated, while the rest of the structure remains lightweight single or double thickness cardboard.
2Ease of manufacture
If traditional cardboard pallets are assembled using hot-gluing with solvents, then the elements are fixed together, but the ecological impact increases and cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts and removes the harmful hot-gluing process with solvents from the assembly method. Instead, it uses a mechanical interlocking system based on folding and overlapping flaps that create friction-based holding, completely eliminating the need for chemical solvents and their associated environmental pollution.
Solution Approach 2:
The overlapping flaps with friction-based holding create a self-locking mechanism that assembles and disassembles without external tools or chemicals. The structure serves itself by using its own geometry and material friction to maintain integrity, eliminating the need for solvent-based adhesives.
3Strength
If wooden pallets are used to ensure high load capacity, then the strength is sufficient, but the weight increases and handling becomes more difficult
Solution Approach 1:
The invention uses thin corrugated cardboard sheets instead of thick wooden planks. The corrugated structure provides high strength-to-weight ratio by distributing loads across the fluted architecture, achieving sufficient load capacity with dramatically reduced weight compared to traditional wooden pallets.
4Device complexity
If cardboard elements are used with insufficient thickness at corners, then the structure is simpler, but the resistance to lateral pressure and vertical loads deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The invention segments the corner structure into multiple overlapping flap layers that create triple thickness zones. This segmentation allows the corner to bear significantly higher loads while the rest of the pallet body remains simpler single or double thickness, optimizing the strength-to-complexity ratio.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a load support device, made of cardboard material made up of at least one block element (1), characterised in that the shape of said block is substantially square, rectangular or the like, in other words, has a square, rectangular, octagonal, polygonal, triangular or equivalent cross-section, and has at least two vertical walls, preferably four (2, 3, 4, 5), a horizontal base (6), and an upper surface for receiving said load. Said block includes at least one locking fold (11) in one of the corners thereof, created by at least two lateral vertical contact sections (in the non-limiting event of a cube having a square or rectangular cross-section) which double the thickness of the material used at the points where the weight of the load will be distributed.