GB2106166A - Insulated van bodies - Google Patents

Abstract

A curtainsided van body has a curtain or curtains of insulating construction to permit it to be used in the transportation of perishable goods. It preferably is also provided with a refrigerating unit 59. The van body may be constructed in accordance with the disclosure of British Patent Specification Nos. 262 879 and 1 262 880, and the curtain may be double-skinned with air-bubble film or plastics foam sandwiched between the skins. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Improvements relating to van bodies This invention relates to van bodies and particularly to van bodies having one or more sides closable by sliding curtains.

The term "van body" is used herein and in the claims to mean any body which has a bed for supporting cargo to be transported and a roof disposed above said bed and which is, or is intended, to be mounted on wheels to provide the trailer portion of a non-articulated road vehicle, the body portion of a non-articulated road vehicle, or even a railway freight wagon. The one or more sides referred to as being closable by sliding curtains may be the vertical iateral or end sides of the body but will usually be the two parallel lateral sides thereof.

The invention is especially but not exclusively applicable to van bodies as disclosed, inter alia, in our United Kingdom Patent Specifications Nos.

B1 262 879 and B1 262 880.

It is an object of the present invention to provide such a van body which is suitable for transporting perishable goods such for example, as fruit or vegetables.

According to the present invention there is provided a van body as hereinbefore defined in which the or each curtain is of insulated construction.

Preferably the curtain is double-skinned with an insulating layer in between the skins.

Where the curtain is constructed as disclosed in our two aforesaid Patent Specifications, i.e. with sleeves through which extend load-bearing tensioning straps, the curtain consists of four layers, namely the three ply insulated construction inboard of the strap and a layer outboard of the strap to define the sleeve and mount the eyes.

Otherwise, the curtain is of three ply construction save at horizontally-spaced vertical locations where reinforcing strips are provided for securement of short tensioning straps.

The van body may be provided with a refrigerator unit, preferably on its front, if required.

Preferably, flexible ducting extends along the van body from this unit, which ducting preferably takes the form of a plurality of ducts of different lengths.

The steelwork columns supporting the roof above the bed are preferably clad with an insulating material, such, for example, as polyvinylchloride.

The bed and the roof of the van body are preferably of insulated construction. Further, the front wall and rear wall or rear doors of the van body are of insulated construction.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a side view with associated details of a van body according to the invention; Fig. 2 is a fragmentary perspective view of the van body roof at one side; Fig. 3 is a fragmentary perspective view of the roof; Fig. 4 is a fragmentary perspective view with associated details of an insulated curtain according to the invention; Fig. 5 is a similar view to Fig. 4 of an alternative curtain; Fig. 6 is a sectional view of the van body roof and bed; Fig. 7 is a sectional plan view of the van body front wall and rear doors; and Fig. 8 is a plan view of the roof.

The van body is generally as disclosed in our aforesaid Patent Specifications.

Briefly, the van body 10 has a freight carrying bed or platform 11 with a solid front wall 12 and rear doors 13 and a roof 14 supported above the bed 11 by the wall 12 and a rear and intermediate metal pillars 15 and 16. The two opposed long sides of the van body 1 0 are of open construction and are adapted to be closed by curtains 17. Each curtain 1 7 is suspended from runners 1 8 movable along an overhead track 1 9. Load-bearing straps 20 each incorporating a tensioning device (not shown) and which pass through sleeves 21 in the curtain 10 are secured at their upper ends to the runners and are adapted to be coupled under tension to convenient hooks or similar (not shown) at the load-carrying bed 11 of the van to tension the curtains 1 7 vertically.The curtains 1 7 are tensioned horizontally by a tensioning means incorporating a rotary spool element (not shown) onto which the curtain 17 is wound at one end, the other end of the curtain 1 7 being anchored.

This invention is concerned with rendering such a curtainsided van body suitable for the transportation of perishable goods.

To this end, the curtains 1 7 are insulated. Each curtain 17 is formed of overlapping strips 22 of plastics material welded together as indicated at 23 to define the sleeves 21 through which the straps 20 pass, plastics eyelets 24 being provided to permit the straps to be threaded in and out of the sleeve 21.

At least one layer 25 of insulating material is laid behind this curtain construction and is maintained in position by a plastics backing layer 26 welded to the curtain 1 7 as indicated at 27 at only one of each pair of welds 23. This is to reduce the number of welds as much as possible thereby reducing the non-insulated area of the curtain 1 7.

The insulating layer 25 may, if necessary, be adhered to the rear of the curtain. It may, inter alia, consist of air bubble film, or plastics foam material.

The backing layer 26 at the sleeves 21 is secured to the curtain at top and bottom by a double-sided adhesive strip. Between sleeves the backing layer 26 and curtain 1 7 are welded together along top and bottom edges and also, of course, along vertical edges.

The curtains are therefore double-skinned, layers 22 and 26 with the intervening layer 27 of insulating material.

The curtain is therefore of three ply construction save at the regions of the sleeves 21 where it is four ply due to the overlapping of layers 22.

An alternative form of curtain 28 (see Fig. 5) is of three ply construction, i.e, an external layer and a backing layer with intervening insulating layer but in this instance the panels 29 making up the external layer are separated by reinforcing strips 30 welded to the curtain 28. These strips 30 receive the runners (not shown) and incorporate rivet attachment points 31 to which short lengths of securing straps (not shown) with tensioning buckles (also not shown) are attached.

The insulated curtains may be secured in position by means other than tensioning straps.

The roof 14 of the van body 10 comprises along each side of the van body 10 a cant rail 32 formed of two RHS, the cant rails 32 being joined by roof bearers 33 including front and rear roof bearers (only front shown). The cant rails 32 are bridged by fibre glass roof pans 34, the number of which are determined by the van body length and which hook over the cant rails 32 and are filled with plastics insulation 35, for example, polyurethane foam. Channel roof sticks 36 join the cant rails 32 at intervals and are located below the roof pans 34. Softwood panels 37 are fixed across the roof pans 34 at intervals by alloy angle brackets 38. The softwood panels 37 are notched to receive a softwood spine 39 extending the whole length of the roof 14.The top surface of each panel 37 is covered with a strip of aluminium alloy onto which is applied a strip of double-sided adhesive tape 40 which serves to secure in position the fibre glass roof panel 41.

The track 1 9 is rivetted to the roof pans 34 and adjacent cant rail 32. The track 1 9 has a top flange 42 to which is applied a double-sided adhesive tape 43 serving to assist in fixing the roof panel 41 in position.

The track 1 9 mounts an external plastics pelmet 44 while an internal plastics pelmet 45 is fixed to the bottom of the cant rail 32. These pelmets 44 and 45 cooperate to provide a seal along the curtain 17, the insulation inside the curtain 1 7 extending above the line of contact of these pelmets.

The van body floor 11 has a pair of raves 46 joined by bearers 47 on which are supported fibre glass floor pans 48, the number being determined by floor length. It would be possible to have only one floor pan (and, of course, one roof pan) but this would not always be convenient in assembling the van body. The floor pans 48 are filled with insulating plastics foam 49, for example polyurethane foam, and this foam 49 is overlaid with a plywood floor 50. At each side of the floor pans 48 is arranged a rebated hardwood packer 51 and on these and the plywood floor 50 is laid a phenolic coated plywood deck 52 with a slip resistant surface. Plastics capping angle members 53 are laid along the edges of the deck 52 to create a thermal break from the outside of the van body 10.

When the curtain 1 7 is pulled across the open side of the van body 10, the insulation of the curtain 1 7 is below the members 53 and the curtain 1 7 is pulled in tight against same by the tensioning straps 20.

The pillars 1 5 and 1 6 are encased in fibre glass channel members 54 to insulate them. Pillars 1 5 are fixed but pillars 1 6 are swinging pillars which can be pivoted between the positions shown but which are normally releasably locked in the full line position.

The front wall 12 of the van body 10 has two spaced walls 55 spaced by intermediate pillars 56 and corner pillars 57 which serve to accommodate the horizontal curtain tensioning spool arrangement disclosed in our aforesaid Patent specifications.

Foam insulation 58 fills the space between the walls 55 save in the area between intermediate pillars 56 which accommodates a refrigeration unit 59.

The refrigeration unit 59 is open at its lower end into the interior of the van body 10 and has three different length flexible roof ducts 60,61,62 terminating at different locations along the length of the van body 10 to provide uniform conditioning of the perishable products being transported.

Finally, the rear doors 13 are hinged as indicated at 63 to the pillars 1 5 and are constituted by a glass reinforced plastics sandwich filled with polyurethane.

Fibre glass angle members 64 are fitted to the pillars 1 5 which may not be otherwise insulated to provide a thermal break.

The above described curtainsided van body 10 which in this instance is a trailer vehicle has proved itself to be a highly satisfactory transportation vehicle for carrying perishable freight.

Claims (12)

1. A van body as hereinbefore defined in which the or each curtain is of insulated construction.

2. A van body as claimed in claim 1, in which the or each curtain is double-skinned with an insulating layer in between the skins.

3. A van body as claimed in claim 1 or 2, in which the or each curtain is constrained in the vertical plane by vertically-extending straps associated with the or each curtain.

4. A van body as claimed in claim 3 when dependent on claim 2, in which each strap is accommodated within a sleeve forming part of the curtain which consists of four layers, namely the double-skinned insulated layer inboard of the strap and a layer outboard of the strap to define the sleeve.

5. A van body as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 4 comprising an insulated freight supporting bed, and an insulated roof supported above the bed by an insulated front wall and pillars.

6. A van body as claimed in claim 5 in which the pillars are insulated.

7. A van body as claimed in claim 5 or 6, in which the roof and the bed both include insulation-filled pans closed, in the case of the roof, by a fibre glass roofing panel, and, in the case of the floor, a wooden deck.

8. A van body as claimed in any preceding claim comprising a track along which the or each curtain can run, there being adjacent the track inner and outer pelmets forming a seal along which the insulated curtain can move.

9. A van body as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 8 closed at the rear by hinged insulated doors.

10. A van body as claimed in any one of claims 5 to 9 provided with a refrigerator unit on its front wall.

11. A van body as claimed in claim 10 comprising flexible ducts of different lengths extending from the refrigerator unit to different regions inside the van body.

12. A van body as hereinbefore defined and substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings.