US Patent: 3,027,025
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| Apparatus for handling freight in transit
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Patentee:
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| Keith W. Tantlinger (exact or similar names) - Mobile, AL |
| Manufacturer: |
| Not known to have been produced |
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Patent Dates:
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| Applied: |
Apr. 08, 1958 |
| Granted: |
Mar. 27, 1962 |
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Jeff Joslin
InGenius video on this patent
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Description: |
| This patent marks the advent of practical container shipping; see also Malcolm McLean's patent 2,853,968 that focuses on the shipping of bulk cargo such as wheat or coal. McLean had owned a trucking fleet and envisioned a container system that made it much easier to move freight between ships and trucks. In 1955 he sold his trucking business to fund the purchasing of a war-surplus ship that he wanted to convert to container shipping. But he first needed a design for a shipping container. He happened to hear that engineer Keith Tantlinger also had this idea of container shipping, and hired him as designer. This patent was the result, and is a tour de force of ingenuity in solving a number of difficult issues in making the containers strong enough to withstand the considerable forces at sea and on the roads, but light enough and cheap enough to be practical. The key innovations are the use of a vertical steel post in each corner to transfer the load forces straight down to the container (or ship or truck-bed) below, thin container walls that provide mechanical protection and prevent the container from racking due to shear (side) forces, and latches that could be inserted into the top of each post to allow another container to be securely stacked on top, or to attach a crane for loading or unloading.The use of container shipping reduced loading and unloading costs to less than 5% of containerless shipping. The idea met with immediate success, but as numerous competitors appeared the lack of standardization threatened to undermine the economic advantages of container shipping. So McLean and Tantlinger worked with the American Standards Association and the ISO to devise a comprehensive set of standards, and in pushing for the adoption of their patented system and the actual physical dimensions they had implemented, they released this patent for royalty-free use so that everyone could use their system. See the linked YouTube video, from the Ingenius channel, for an excellent overview of McLean and Tantlinger, the advent of container shipping, and how China came to dominate both shipping and manufacturing. |
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