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For example, is this sentence correct?

The requested goods must be delivered within 5 business days upon receipt of a request (or simply upon request).

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Yes, your sentence is okay. You are using "within" in one prepositional phrase, and "upon" for a second, different prepositional phrase. If you want to shorten your sentence, you could say, "The goods must be delivered within 5 business days of the request." Or "The goods must be delivered within 5 business day of receiving a request." – JLG Aug 5 '12 at 15:21
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Mere proofreading questions are off-topic, per the FAQ. – tchrist Aug 5 '12 at 15:41
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Welcome, Pujing. Please can you edit your question to explain why you think you can't use within and upon like that? You might also found our proposal for a site for English language learners of interest. – Matt Эллен Aug 5 '12 at 16:17

closed as off topic by tchrist, Matt Эллен, simchona♦, Robusto, Mitch Aug 7 '12 at 13:10

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1 Answer

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It is acceptable to say upon; of or from would be better.

The normal pattern is:

within [time period] of / from [event]

E.g.:

within 5 business days of receipt of request

To understand why upon is also acceptable, notice that we can also just say:

within [time period]

E.g.:

Goods must be delivered within 5 days.

When the of / from part of the structure is missing, the [event] must be inferred from context. We can make that context explicit by adding an upon modifier to the beginning sentence:

Upon receipt of a request, goods must be delivered within 5 days.

Or we can add it to the end of the sentence:

Goods must be delivered within 5 days upon receipt of request.

So, to reiterate, within ... upon ... is acceptable, but within ... of ... and within ... from ... are preferable.

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