Nowadays, land prices are rising dramatically. Therefore, instead of large storage halls, investors more and more often decide to use high rack or high storage warehouses.
Highlights information
High storage halls are storage buildings characterised by a significant utility height and higher degree of filling the facility volume than in the case of traditional warehouses. In view of the high land price, usually they are built in lightly and medium urbanised areas.
Modern storage halls
In modern storage halls (including high storage halls), the facility’s logistics is one of the most important issues. More and more often, investors decide to deploy innovative, fully automated storage systems. Then, the entire process is managed by a mechanised, computer-aided system. Thanks to which, more efficient and easier work in the warehouse is possible.
Storage technologies
There are several types of storage technology of loading units. Static storage technologies include:
- non-rack, ground level technologies,
- rack technologies.
Dynamic storage technologies include:
- rack technologies – in flow, circular, sliding and travelling racks,
- on the means of transport – on conveyors, mobile robots, and towed carts.
High storage hall Rum-Lux (see realisation)
High storage warehouses – application and design guidelines
High storage or high rack warehouses are used for the storage of goods if their precise records and the efficient use of space are necessary. High rack warehouse’s support structure is a hall with frame structure and, at the same time, a height greater than in the case of traditional halls. The height of free-standing racks in this type of facilities should be at least 10 metres. They are loaded with stored goods. However, they do not carry any climate burdens –the latter are transferred by the hall’s support structure.
High storage hall should have the support structure with welded plate girders or rolled profiles. In the case of a high rack warehouse, there profiles are, at the same time, the support structure of the facility’s roof and walls. This means that the rack design, besides storage of goods, also serves as the building’s support and, hence, also transfers climatic burdens.
Differences in design solutions
Storage racks are typically spacial long-span and multi-level frames. In the transverse direction, they have sufficient stiffness, since the rack posts can be connected can with vertical bracings. Bracing rods are connected with the posts with welded or screw connections. In the longitudinal direction, due to the practical storage of goods, appropriate bracings cannot be used. Due to a relatively small cross-section of the rack posts, an anchoring of post feet bars cannot be recognised as a fixing. The matter of intermediate posts’ stiffening in longitudinal direction using horizontal beams is similar – it cannot be considered to be a fixing because the beams are connected with the posts with clamp connections.
The higher is the hall, the more important is the facility’s spacial stiffness. Horizontal bracings are extremely important in the spacial operation. In high rack warehouses, horizontal bracings are designed every few levels, rather than on each storey (shelf) – as it the case of horizontal bracings.
Politeknik’s storage hall (see realisation)
In high rack warehouses, the nodes of grits with posts cannot be constructed as clamp ones, as in the high storage warehouse’s shelves, but they should be welded or screw ones. Usually, the high rack warehouse are built of thin-walled elements of both the open cross-section and square, rectangular and round pipes.
Currently, in the narrow aisles of the warehouses, the so-called stacker cranes are already used instead of traditional forklifts. This solution minimises cubature losses incurred for the traffic routes system. The stacker cranes are additionally characterised by the so-called high horizontal and vertical dynamics extremely facilitating handling of the goods. The fact that the vertical range of their operation may reach even 40 meters is also important.
When deciding to commence the investment, which is warehouse construction, you must remember that the space will not be unlimited. It is worth considering the implementation of innovative and more and more eagerly adopted idea, which is to construct a high storage hall. This solution will enable store more goods in the same space as in a traditional hall. Modern technology is accompanied by exactly this type of modifications, which are certainly worth using.
