A COMPLETE GUIDE TO STORAGE RACK SYSTEMS

Posted by omieplastri on August 2nd, 2022

A storage rack or shelf is a structure, which consists of at least two upright (vertical) frames, horizontal beams and some form of deck (strips, panels, grids or none) in order to store goods and materials. Storage rack is an important part of material handling, because it allows you to maximize the available height space in the storage space, without the goods being affected by load breakage due to stacking. In this guide, we help you understand the various types of storage racks and determine which storage space you really need from a neutral point of view. Fundamentally, most storage shelf systems fall into the following three categories:

• Light shelf system
• Medium shelf system
• Heavy shelf system

Light shelves are designed for manual loading and storage, instead of using machinery such as forward moving trucks or forklifts. The load capacity of each floor varies from manufacturer to manufacturer, but generally speaking, assuming uniform load distribution (UDL), the light rack can bear 80 to 250KG per floor. These attributes make the light shelf system most suitable for lightweight storage in homes, offices, SOHO or commercial warehouses dealing with e-commerce and small fast-moving consumer goods. At present, two common types of light shelves in the market are Bolt & Nut Racks and Boltless Racks.

The medium-sized shelf system is also designed for manual loading and storage, instead of using machinery such as forward-moving trucks or forklifts. The key point is that the medium-sized shelf has a better load capacity on each floor, usually in the range of 300 to 800KG(UDL) per floor, and can appear as a cantilever system.

Heavy-duty shelves, or sturdy structures as they are commonly called, are specially designed for pallet goods and heavy goods storage. These goods usually need material handling machinery, such as forward moving trucks or forklifts, to be lifted. Therefore, the load capacity of each floor of the pallet rack is between 1000 and 3000 kilograms (UDL) per floor. It also has a horizontal beam length of up to 3600mm and a vertical frame depth profile of up to 1200mm deep.