Dock Leveller

Summary

Dock Leveller - A dock leveller is a height adjustable platform between a warehouse floor and a delivery vehicle, allowing Materials Handling Equipment (MHE) to retrieve goods from the vehicle more easily and safely.

Technical Information

Dock levellers are typically powered either hydraulically or pneumatically and are designed to have a high bearing capacity in order to withstand loads from fully loaded MHE.

Dock levellers can be problematic in slab design due to the fact that they are tied into the slab and, where several are located in a row, create numerous re-entrant corners. Because of this, significant restraint can be induced.

The risk of restraint cannot generally be reduced with carefully placed joints, so instead the slab in which the docks are located is isolated from the main body of the slab by way of an armoured joint approximately 1m for the back edge of the dock. Additional reinforcement is then placed in the top of the slab to control the opening widths of any cracks that may occur. Cracking will arrest at the armoured joint and will not propagate into the main free movement panel.

The management of the Clients expectations is vital; it is expected that some cracking will take place within the isolated slab, the installation of sawn joints is in effort to reduce the risk and should not be considered as preventative.