you could also google for "airplane container". Those seem to be fairly standardized as well, and lend themselves better for applying some futuristic design than boring shipping containers
Probably for the same reasons bees use a hexagonal shape? Less resources used to create the container, less energy expended to create it, better stability, more can be packed into a tighter space ect... http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2013/05/13/183704091/what-is-it-about-bees-and-hexagons Maybe the crate of the future…
I imagine something that could cause containers to change their design though would be a big change in how things are transported. I imagine wood may not be the best container if transportation ends up moving at much higher speeds. I doubt the design would change a whole long, but switching to a sturdier material than…
Circle packing is inherently inefficient. There are a lot of reasons why liquids get stored in drums or barrels, though. If you think about tanks that store flammable gases under high pressure, like propane or natural gas, they're usually shaped something like this: All the seams are welded, of course, to prevent the…
Hexes don't pack any more densely than triangles or squares do. Their advantage is mostly that you can make an equally sturdy container with less material.
The standard Intermodal Container is 40 feet long with there being 20 foot and 10 foot variations in existence. If drones were to transport them in the future, you would probably have 10 x 10 foot cubes or 5 x 5 cubes that can stack inside the 40 foot containers. No reason to reinvent the wheel when the current system…
They will still look the same. Also standard shipping containers are kinda high tech. They are stackable fit on trains trucks and ships, have mount points to make them easy to move. Some of them have HVAC systems to maintain a certain tempture for the cargo.
the crates of today are the standardized shipping containers. They're standardized so they fit on ships, trucks and trains. They're stackable, solid and there's lots of infrastructure for handling them already in place. It's a pretty damn good standard, which will be with us for quite a long time I guess.
In a former life I had two large antique stores ( Houston n Austin ) and had large enuff shows at the bi-annual Round Top/Warrenton Trade days to require additional warehouse and storage space ( including large furniture and architecturals ). But it was the mountain of small stuff that needed to be packed stored and…