Nestable Pallets, 45 x 45 in Footprint

What rides on a 45 x 45 in pallet

• Chemical bags, boxes and drums
• The CP9 chemical standard
• Container cubing, packing the floor of a shipping container

A 45 x 45 in pallet, 1140 x 1140 mm, is the CP9 chemical standard. It carries bags, boxes and drums, and it packs the floor of a shipping container neatly, which is why exporters of powders and resins use it.

Because the shape is square, a loaded pallet can go into a container in either direction, and the forklift does not have to turn to match the rack.

Shape and size

• Perimeter: 180.0 in (4,572 mm).
• Diagonal corner to corner: 63.6 in (1,616 mm), which is the room a pallet needs to turn in an aisle.
• Area: 1.306 square metres, 14.06 square feet.
• Aspect: the long side is 1.000 times the short side, so the deck is square.

In practice

Squares of 45 in are about packing the floor of a shipping container. A container floor is a fixed rectangle, and a pallet that tiles it with little waste means more product per box and fewer boxes per order. That arithmetic belongs to the exporter, who should ask the forwarder for a tiling plan before choosing between this size and its neighbours.

Chemical bags and drums are heavy for their volume, so the ratings of a pallet in this size should be read against the full stack, not one bag. If the pallet nests, the empties come back short; if it does not, ask what the return costs, and remember a fire listing, if you need one, belongs to the model, not to the footprint.

Against its nearest footprints

The table orders the closest four by area. A 45 x 45 in pallet is 2,025 sq in; the nearest listed footprint differs by 105 sq in. Footprint is the choice the container makes for you, and a small difference in area is a large difference to a rack beam or a drum.

Counting the empty trailer

Few makers print per-stack or per-trailer figures for a 45 x 45 in nestable, so this site does not invent them. Ask for the two numbers, enter them in the calculator under another footprint, and the trailers follow.

As an illustration of the arithmetic only: if a maker printed 1,500 per trailer, 2,400 returning pallets would need 2 trailers, 5,000 would need 4, and 10,530 would need 8. Use the maker's real figure, not this one.

45 x 45 in against every other footprint

Questions for the maker

• Static load with a full stack of bags
• Whether the maker lists the pallet for chemical storage
• Per-trailer figures, since few sheets print them for this size

A note on this page

Automotive and chemical bins both pick this footprint, but for different reasons: bins because the container drawing demands it, chemical shippers because four-sided entry suits mixed handling. Know which reason applies to you before comparing models.

From the dock

• Spare capacity at a depot makes nesting less urgent; scarce floor space makes it the whole argument.
• Warehouses with low ceilings find nested stacks fit under sprinkler lines that tall un-nested stacks would hit.

Words on this page

Cube utilisation

How well loaded freight fills the volume of a trailer or container. Taller or wider-than-floor pallets waste cube.

Nest increment

The extra height each additional empty pallet adds to a nested stack, measured in inches. A small increment means a short stack.

UL

Underwriters Laboratories, a safety testing body that publishes fire test standards, including one for storage pallets.

Nest ratio

How many empty pallets fit in the height of one: pallet height divided by nest increment.