Pallet construction

Claim 1

A pallet assembly comprising top and bottom decks defining a space therebetween for the insertion of lifting members of a loading apparatus, each deck having a plurality of support panels bounded by connecting portions and defining a body formed in a series of spaced parallel corrugations, the transverse crosssectional contour of the corrugations being in form of regular trapezoids having inclined opposed legs and horizontally disposed upper and lower base portions interconnecting adjacent pairs of opposed legs, with each of said base portions having an inner face, the successive corrugations being reinforced by a plurality of spaced beams integral with said inner faces of said base portions and at least a portion of each leg and extending transversely between pairs of said opposed legs and substantially perpendicularly from said inner face of the base portions, said beams being positioned in the successive corrugations in longitudinal alignment constituting continuous beams for resisting bending stresses exerted on the pallet, the said horizontally disposed exposed upper base portions of said corrugations of said top deck constituting a top planar loadsupporting face, and the oppositely disposed exposed lower base portions of the said top deck being adapted for engagement by fork-lift tines or tying means for securing loads to the pallet, and the said horizontally disposed exposed lower base portions of said corrugations of said bottom deck constituting a bottom planar load-supporting face, a plurality of hollow feet integrally formed and extending downwardly from the bottom face of the upper deck and mating with a plurality of complementary integrally formed hollow feet extending upwardly from the upper face of said bottom deck for spacing said top and bottom decks with respect to each other, each of said feet having an open base end and a closed outer end, means for coupling together said spaced top and bottom decks by securing together said closed ends of said complementary feet on said respective top and bottom decks, said bottom deck including an integral reinforced double wall framework defining said open base end of each hollow foot thereon, each framework comprising pairs of closely spaced parallel runners surrounding and integral with said base end of each foot, and a plurality of short transverse ribs extending between and integral with said parallel runners, said framework for each foot further being integral with said corrugations in said bottom deck.