Pallet—and by extension, all—racking makes some assumptions. You’re storing something rectangular that can fit on a pallet and stack. Most warehouses can follow the assumption, and some cannot. Where it breaks is when your goods do not conform to rectangular and stackable descriptions. Enter cantilever racking.
Structural Variances of Cantilever Racking
Unlike other racking, cantilever racking does not make use of horizontal beams, which serve as ‘pallets’ spanning the distance and supporting the goods. In the case of horizontal beams, cantilever racking replaces these with arms that extend from a central cantilever column, and is the only thing spanning across the front of the bay.
There are many applications to cantilever racking. The most common of these applications consist of the storage of industrial goods. These typically consist of timber (wood), metal and plastic goods, pipes, lumber stock, and anything with extended lengths to be impractical to store.
Timber and Building Merchants use cantilever racking primarily as arms. The arms of the cantilever racking can be set at various heights and distance intervals from one another to separate different lengths and sections of the goods. With some joinery workshops, they may use lowered versions, with shorter arms, to provide quick access to goods/modalities or components primarily joint timber and construction timber.
Steel stockholders and metalworking businesses use cantilever racking for long bar, angle, channel, and tube stock. The arm length and load capacity are often greater in these applications compared with timber uses, and the loading methods are also different. Side-loading forklifts and A-frame cranes are often used compared to the standard counterbalance fork lift trucks.
Sheet materials such as plywood, MDF, plasterboard, and polycarbonate roofing sheets require yet another different configuration with short arms and close spacing, often with a lip on the arm to keep the sheets from sliding forward.
Single-sided cantilever racking has arms on just one side of the vertical uprights. The system is generally placed against a wall with the wall acting as the back of the system, thus saving the floor space behind the system. This is ideal for storage systems with wall access and one-way aisle access.
This type of racking has arms on both sides of the system. It is a self-supporting system in the center of a storage area with two-way access. This type is particularly useful in large storage areas and is structurally more stable under load compared to the single-sided systems of the same height.
A single-sided system should not have arms on the back side of the system. The uprights may have holes to accept the arms but those uprights are not rated for bilateral loading in that configuration. This is an issue of safety, not preference.
The important factors when defining it
The easy first consideration is the arm capacity. Arm deflection is also important to consider. The cantilever arms will deflect when the arms are loaded. An arm with a high deflection rating will cause the arm to deflect a lot, leading to the loaded material either rolling forward or uneven stacking pressure will be caused. With this, deflection rating should be prioritized, not the load capacity.
Column spacing will determine how the system supports longs items, when not spaced right items will sag. Column spacing centers for timber applications are usually spaced from 1,000mm to 1,500mm. Longer and heavier items may require spacing to be tighter.
The arm length should fit what you are supporting. The arm should extend to the material to support it, but not so much that it takes up other spaces or creates any hazards.
Cantilever racking is better for other items.
Cantilever racking is a suggestion often given for things that would be better served by other systems. If irregular items are to be placed on a pallet or stillage, and are to be stored on conventional racking, the system will be more cost effective and easier to implement. Cantilever racking is more of a solution for items that are not able to be stored in other systems.
You should also examine your building. In taller configurations, Cantilever systems transmit considerable point loads to the floor, and the floor selection and anchoring system should be congruent to the system design. A proper survey should identify this prior to installation, not after.
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