Palletized container bottom construction

Claim 1

A palletized container, comprising a vertically arranged foldable blank including a succession of vertical walls hingedly connected at their vertical edges, said blank being foldable to an operative condition in which said walls define an open-ended container chamber, at least one pair of said walls being opposed and parallel when said blank is in the operative condition, said blank also including a first pair of bottom flaps (14, 18) hingedly connected with the bottom edges of said one pair of walls, the sum of the vertical dimensions of said bottom flaps normal to the hinge lines thereof being greater than the spacing distance between said one pair of walls, one of said bottom flaps (14) containing at its lower edge a pair of horizontally spaced vertical slots (20) arranged to define a central interlocking portion (14a) contained between a pair of outer interlocking portions (14b); a plurality of first support elements (24) secured to said first bottom flap adjacent the hinge line thereof; a plurality of second support elements (26) secured to said second bottom flap adjacent the hinge line thereof; at least one third support element (28) secured to said central interlocking portion of said first bottom flap; and a pair of spaced fourth support elements (30) secured to the bottom corner portions of said second bottom flap, the spacing distance between said fourth support elements being at least as great as the width of said central interlocking portion; each of said support elements having the same thickness and being arranged on the same side of said blank, said bottom flaps being foldable toward overlapping horizontal positions in which the central and outer interlocking portions of said first bottom flap are below and above the adjacent edge portion of said second bottom flap, respectively, and in which said support elements extend downwardly from said bottom flaps for supporting engagement with a fixed horizontal surface.