Racking All Over the World
We talk quite happily about racking up votes, debts, successes or customers, but this word means a whole load of other things as well. Racking (not rocking) horses do a rather complicated sort of dance involving four reins. Hat racking is a term for severely pruning a tree of all but its largest branches. And, as if all that wasn't enough, racking also refers to part of the wine making process. It is the part where heavy sediment is separated from the free wine. But racking is, of course, most commonly used in DIY and industrial storage.
Pallet racking comes in all sorts of configurations, but the importance of getting the basics right is the key to any pallet racking project. For safe and efficient operation, racking systems must be designed to fit and function with both the handling equipment and the load. Pallet racking is essentially a very simple system consisting of two main components. Also know as uprights or legs, the frames form the support for the beams. Frames are made up of three components, legs, bracing bars (horizontal and vertical) and feet. Two frames are required to make a single bay of racking, additional bays can be added to this with the addition of another single frame. If you have more than one bay in a row, this becomes known as a run or a row.
Beams provide the support for the pallets or decking if the racking is to be used as shelving. A pair of beams is needed to form a single level of support. Beams attach to the frames using a series of lugs which correspond to recesses in the frame. Beams lengths and weight loadings vary, but the industry standard is 2.7m 2 tonne beams for standard pallets and 2.4m 2 tonne beams for euro pallets. These allow two pallets to be stored per level. The connections for each racking system differ in design. This means that if you want to replace or add components, you must first identify the original system. As pallets usually only need to be accessed from one direction, to save space rows are often placed back to back. The access spaces in between the rows of racking are known as aisles, and their widths are determined by the method used to access the pallets.
There are other kinds, too. Pushback racking offers the same storage density as drive-in and drive-thru racking, but greater selectivity. All loads are stored and retrieved from the aisle. Then, when that load is picked, the contents of the lane all move gently forward again, hence the term "push back racking." Gravity Flow racking is similar, except loads are generally deposited on one side and flow gently to the other. Drive-in and drive-through systems offer a highly efficient way of storing large quantities of similar loads by allowing the forklift driver to enter the racking system and place the load on structural rails.
Finally, cantilever storage racking and shelving is useful for long objects. Typical loads are metal extrusions, steel bars, tubes, pipes, carpet rolls, furniture and other long items. So, it may be one word, but racking means a host of different things, and comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
