European and United States approaches for steel storage pallet rack design

Abstract

A very common application of cold-formed thin-walled steel members regards the industrial storage systems for goods and products, such as pallet racks, which are the core of the present paper. Owing to the increasing needs associated with globalization as well as the importance of the logistics, nowadays, rack manufactures must be highly competitive in the most industrialized countries: as a consequence, it is frequently required that engineers design in accordance with standards of the country where the storage rack will be in service. Due to peculiarities associated with the requirements of each code, different values of the rack load carrying capacity are expected and their quantification should be of great interest for commercial reasons: this is an important open question for designers and manufactures that up to now is without any practical response.A two-part paper has been written to summarize the main results of a comparative study on pallet rack design provisions currently adopted in Europe and the United States. Part 1 describes the key features of both codes, discussing similarities and differences associated with the admitted design procedures with reference to the member verification procedures and to the alternative analysis approaches. Furthermore, practical comparisons related to isolated members under compression and bending are proposed to allow a direct appraisal of structural performance.The companion paper (part 2: Practical applications) reports on an exhaustive analysis with regards to the contents herein introduced and applied to the design of 216 medium-rise semi-continuous pallet racks that are unbraced in the longitudinal direction.

Numerical Study on Seismic Response of Steel Storage Racks with Roller Type Isolator

“…In this investigation, it is assumed that the total length of the air chamber of the pneumatic piston that constitutes the elastic element of the isolator is 3 4 of the total height of the device, that is, Figure 2). This restriction is imposed to accommodate the maximum deformable length of the elastic element ∆l max , and the ball joint in the basal bearing.…”

“…The structural configuration of the pallet racks consists of the combination of orthogonal frame systems, running parallel to the aisles, and frames are braced in a perpendicular direction to the aisles [2]. The bracing is used perpendicularly for practical reasons because it can affect storage capacity [3].…”

“…The beams have a generally rectangular closed section, composed of two C-sections with stiffened wings with discontinuous welded joints between them in the longitudinal direction [5][6][7][8]. These structures are designed to be narrow perpendicular to the aisles, while they are longer in a parallel direction to them [3]. Industrial storage racks can reach heights that exceed 10 m with a high vertical load, reaching very large slendernesses -height/width ratio- [9].…”

Design and Analysis of Automated Rack Supported Warehouses

“…The traditional structural scheme of steel SR consists of a regular sequence of upright frames connected by coupled pallet beams devoted to carry on the goods, as widely presented by Bernuzzi [4]. The bracing system is forced in the transversal direction to maximize the storage capacity.…”

Ponašanje Industrijskih Regala Pod Uticajem Probnog Opterećenja

“…All of these codes include tests of structural elements, even in a design phase. A Comparative review of analysis methods recommended by these codes is given in [11]. Current situation in Serbia is such that steel racks have an ambiguous treatment in practice.…”