The invention refers to a rack for supporting and moving concrete roof tiles with pallets into curing stations comprising lateral slide rails positioned in tiers and in pairs facing one another to carry the side edges of the pallets.

On a known rack of this type (DE-PS 19 45 419-), the lateral slide rails are V-shaped and only suitable for supporting normal concrete roof tiles and their pallets. Special tiles, as for instance ridge tiles or verge tiles, cannot be placed on the known rack; up to now, they were transported from a conveyor belt into the curing station by hand and placed there on special supports. After curing it was necessary to remove these special tiles from the curing station again by hand and to put them on de-palleting belts. This procedure ist time-consuming and, due to a considerable need of manpower, involving very high labour cost, which makes it uneconomical. Also a large throughput capacity of the curing stations cannot be reached thereby.

The object of the invention is to provide a solution by which a rack of the aforementioned type is designed in such a way that also special tiles of different dimensions, in particular narrower ridge tiles and verge tiles with a side overhang, can be placed thereon.

For a rack of the aforementioned type, this problem is solved according to the invention in that the lateral slide rails have opposing and mainly horizontal flanges, the outer borders of which connect to a step extending in upward direction.

Due to this invention, practically all existing types of concrete roof tiles can be placed on the rack, no matter whether normal roof tiles or special tiles, as for instance ridge tiles or verge tiles, are involved, because the profile of the lateral slide rails according to the invention makes it possible to place thereon roof tiles of different width as well as shape.

According to a further development of the invention, the step of the one slide rail has an upper side descending from the edge of the step at an angle of inclination of 5 to 25° against a horizontal plane in outward direction and the step of the other slide rail has an upper side ascending, at least in the area connecting to the edge of the step, at about the same angle of inclination in outward direction, so that in conformity with the position of the pallets for verge tiles, two inclined supporting areas are obtained on the rails.

For a very often used type of verge tile pallets, an accurate and reliable support is achieved if the angle of inclination of the upper side of the one step and of the area of the upper side of the other step is about 15°.

If the slide rails consist of multiply bent off sheet metal parts with doubled sheet metal strips in the area of their flanges, it is not only possible to produce them easily, but also to obtain a great stability in the area of the flanges.

With a preferred slide rail profile, the lower of the doubled sheet metal strips is part of a section extending to a lateral frame part, whereas the upper of the doubled sheet metal strips extends over the step to the frame part.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

• Figure 1 is an end elevation of a rack according to the invention;
• Figure 2 is a side elevation of the rack shown in Figure 1 on a reduced scale;
• Figure 3 is a cross-sectional view on an enlarged scale of one of the slide rails positioned on the left-hand side of the rack shown in Figure 1;
• Figure 4 is a cross-sectional view on the same scale as in Figure 3 of one of the slide rails positioned on the right-hand side of the rack shown in Figure 1;
• Figures 5 and 6 are views of the rack shown in Figure 1 with loading examples.

As shown in Figure 2, the rack generally designated 1 has three supporting frames 2 which, according to Figure 1, consist in each case of two lateral frame parts 3, a bottom frame part 4, and a head frame part 5. On the lateral frame parts 3, slide rails 6 and 7 are positioned in tiers and in pairs facing one another.

As not shown, the feeding of the rack 1 with the concrete roof tiles on pallets is preferably carried out by one or, according to DE-PS 19 45 419, by several conveyor belts positioned one upon the other. At the same time, the slide rail pairs 6, 7 are adjusted to the level of the conveyor belts by means of a stepwise lowering of the rack. In order to make a troublefree feeding also possible if the slide rail pairs are a little too high for the conveyor belts, the slide rails are inclined downwards at the entrance area 8. The rack 1 is additionally provided with supports 9 which permit an automatic moving.

The slide rail 6 shown in Figure 3 in a cross-sectional view consists of a multiply bent off sheet metal part which has a fastening flange 10 which connects to a section 11 extending horizontally. By bending back the sheet metal from the inner edge of the section 11, a doubling is produced whereby a flange 12 is formed which, after about one third of the width of the section, connects to a step 13. The front side of the step 13 extends from the outer border of the flange 12 over a steeply ascending area 14 to a vertical area 15 which terminates at an edge 16 of the step. The step 13 has an upper side 17 descending from the edge 16 of the step at an angle of inclination α of about 15° against the horizontal plane 18 in outward direction and extending then to another fastening flange 19.

The slide rail 7 shown in Figure 4 on the same scale as in Figure 3 consists like the slide rail 6 of a multiply bent off sheet metal part and has also respective fastening flanges 10', 19', a section 11' extending horizontally, a flange 12' formed by doubling, and a step 13'. Unlike the slide rail 6, the step 13'.of the slide rail 7 has a stiffening rib 20 in its lower part which connects to the vertical area 15¹. Besides, only an area 17' of the upper side connecting to the edge 16' of the step extends at the same angle of inclination OC of about 15° against the horizontal plane 18, as shown in Figure 3, whereas the following area 21 extends horizontally and is connected over a steeply ascending area 22 with the other fastening flange 19'.

As can be seen, in particular from Figures 5 and 6 showing the loading examples, practically all existing types of concrete roof tiles can be placed with their pallets on the slide rails 6 and 7. The flanges 12,12' make the placing of the pallets 23 for ridge tiles 24 (lower half of Figure 5) possible, and the steps 13,13¹ permit the placing of the pallets 25a - 25e for normal concrete roof tiles 26a-26e with different profiles, as also shown in Figure 5.

The inclined upper side 17 of the slide rail 6 and the correspondingly inclined area 17' of the upper side of the slide rail 7 make an accurate positioning of the pallets 27a - 27e for verge tiles 28a - 28e with different profiles possible, as shown in Figure 6. The pallets are provided with a supporting shoulder 29a - 29e, which rests firmly against the respective slide rail 6 due to the inclined upper side 17 and area 17'.