DE9013361U1 - Support and aid device, particularly for elderly or physically disabled people, which can come into contact with water and/or serve as a grip surface, made of stainless steel - Google Patents

Description

drying. Ernst Stratmann

PATENT ATTORNEY D-4000 DÜSSELDORF 1 · SCHADOWPLATZ 9

Düsseldorf, 19 September 1990

9026-2 Gm

Hans Grimberg Stainless Steel GmbH
D-4300 Essen 18

Support and aids, especially for the elderly or physically disabled
People that can come into contact with water and/or serve as a grip, made of stainless steel

The invention relates to support and aid devices which are intended in particular for elderly and physically disabled people and which are composed of tubes and which consist, at least on their surface, of a stainless steel alloy, in particular of stainless steel.

Surface treatment using particle blasting has long been known as "sandblasting technology". Such sandblasting processes are used in industrial and craft businesses to remove rust, scale or burrs from metal surfaces, whereby this sandblasting process is superior to other processes (such as brushing and hand sanding). The sand particles are usually set in motion using compressed air or by centrifugal devices.

With the help of such sandblasting equipment, surfaces

posTSCH eck, Berlin west (bank code 1001001 O) 1327 36-109 · deutsche bank (bank code 300 70 010) 6160253

surfaces are "refined", e.g. by roughening, which means that these surfaces can then be better coated using plastics, rubber coatings, paint. In this way, for example, frying pans, baking tins, pots are provided with Teflon coatings.

The burrs that arise when grinding and drilling metal objects, as well as the burrs on die-cast parts, can also be removed using sandblasting equipment.

It is also known to use sandblasters to mattify steel, metal and glass surfaces, for example to apply decorative images, or to achieve a uniform surface, a satin-matt shine on aluminum or brass parts (so-called satinizing), as well as to conceal grooves or pressure marks.

In particular, ground or finished surfaces are also smoothed by this type of sandblasting.

The impact of particles on a surface can also lead to surface hardening phenomena, which is advantageous, for example, for springs, crankshaft running surfaces, gears or the like.

The present invention has now recognized that this known method with a corresponding device can also be used very advantageously for another purpose that was previously unknown: With fittings made of stainless steel, it has always been difficult to achieve a clean appearance on the one hand, but also to make the surface resistant to water and sweat on the other.

to make marks. The smoothing is usually done by fine grinding and, if necessary, subsequent polishing, which either creates a surface with visible grinding marks or a polished surface that is optically smooth and reflective. The disadvantage of both the ground surface and, even more so, the optically reflective surface is that every fingerprint that is made by touching or grasping this object is visible. Splashing water, as occurs in wet areas (&zgr;. &Bgr;. in the bathroom), also creates water marks and limescale marks on this shiny surface, which are also visually disturbing.

The object of the invention is to create support and aids of the type mentioned at the beginning, in which the (e.g. originally ground or polished) surface, which is either to be gripped or which can come into contact with water, is designed in such a way that fingerprints or similar caused by sweat residues or water stains or lime stains caused by splashing water are not visible on this surface or are no longer visible to the same extent as before.

At the same time, another problem, namely the slipping of the hand in these supports and aids, which are intended to be grasped and held by a human hand and are made of stainless steel, is to be eliminated by designing their surface in such a way that the slip resistance is increased.

These two objects are achieved according to the invention in that in the support and aid of the type mentioned at the beginning, the exposed surface, in particular in the areas that are visible and/or serve as a gripping surface, is provided with a particle irradiation process

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matt, preferably austenitically hardened surface.

Preferably, balls made of glass or stainless steel, in particular stainless steel balls with a solidified surface, are used as particles, the diameter of the glass or steel balls being less than 1 mm, preferably less than 0.1 mm.

Compressed air with a pressure of 5 to 15 bar, preferably 6 to 10 bar, is preferably used to accelerate the balls.

The support and aid is preferably attached to a surface or depression that does not require treatment and then the jet direction of the glass or steel balls is aligned so that it either corresponds to the later main viewing direction or directions of the object and/or the directions from which the object is to absorb pressure or friction when handled. This measure saves the treatment of surfaces that are not visually visible or whose surfaces are not important for grip safety. This reduces processing time and therefore costs. In contrast to grinding, areas that are relatively inaccessible are also treated, such as internal corners, which are particularly common with such support and aids.

To increase the grip strength and the slip resistance of flat surfaces and handlebars, the measure used so far has been to press a certain pattern into the surface, for example a pearl pattern, letter pattern or ribbed pattern. These patterns do increase the grip strength in the desired way.

ability, also make water and limescale stains largely invisible, but have the serious disadvantage that, on the one hand, they require the use of special sheet metal or special pipe with the prefabricated pattern, which increases production costs, and, on the other hand, the areas that arise during the manufacturing process of the handle, for example, are not covered, for example in the area of weld seams, or where subsequent processing is necessary, such as grinding. In these places, the corresponding surface pattern is then missing and this cannot be subsequently produced.

The invention is explained in more detail below using embodiments shown in the drawings.

It shows:

Fig. 1 shows a perspective view of a door handle with a square handle shape and a welding point;

Fig. 2 also shows a perspective view of a handle with a round grip shape;

Fig. 3 also shows in perspective a so-called toilet lifter with tubular handle elements, to be used in a wet room intended for disabled people, as an example of the use of handle elements treated according to the invention;

Fig. 4 shows a diagram of a rotary table with a connector for door handles for particle irradiation from a specific direction, e.g. corresponding to the later viewing direction; and

Fig. 5 a deflection ring for blasting particles for the simultaneous treatment of several surfaces of an object.

First, let us look at Fig. 4, which shows a particle beam system 10, consisting of a foundation 12 on which a rotary table 14 is rotatably mounted. The rotary table has a number of retaining pins 16, 116, e.g. in the form of a square, near its edge, onto which, for example, door handles 18 shown here with their square bore (into which the square actuating shaft is later inserted) can be placed in such a way that they point radially outwards with respect to the rotary table, for example as shown.

Only three door handles 18 can be seen in the illustration, but it goes without saying that in principle each of the numerous square retaining pins 16 carries such a door handle 18. Furthermore, a jet nozzle 20 can be seen, which is supplied with metal or glass balls of a selected diameter via a line 22, and with compressed air of a suitable pressure (for example 8 bar) via a line 24. In the nozzle 20, balls fed via the hose 22 are strongly accelerated under the effect of the compressed air and emerge from the nozzle as a particle jet 26, which has a certain cone angle and a certain jet direction, which can be changed by adjusting the jet nozzle with regard to the cone angle and the cone direction. For this purpose, the jet nozzle 20 can be attached in an articulated manner to a rod 28 and the nozzle 20 itself can have a device for adjusting the jet width. Further details of the system do not need to be described, as the processes and equipment are known per se. The emitted material (the glass balls or steel balls) is suitably

collected again and fed again via the hose 22 so that a closed ball circuit can be achieved. Damaged balls and dust material knocked off the irradiated material are removed by suitable filter devices in a known manner.

What is important here is that the direction of the beam 26 is set so that this direction corresponds to the later viewing direction of the usual user, so that, for example, only the surfaces of the door handle 18 are treated which are also visually important later. According to Fig. 1, this is the upward-facing handle surface 32, the front surface 34 and the upward-facing round surface 30 of the attachment lying parallel to the actuating square 36. In the embodiment according to Fig. 2, the essentially upper half of the circular surface 38 of the door handle, which here consists of round material, is treated in its entirety.

The rosette 40 separated from it could be treated at the same time on the rotary table 14, where it could be placed on a second row of holding pins 116, irradiated by a nozzle 120 which would be aligned differently, namely in this case vertically from above, so that the balls hit the surface 42 of the rosettes 40. This surface 42 is again the one which is essentially visible to the average user. In order to be able to treat the cylindrical surface 44 as well, without having to laboriously guide a nozzle around this surface or rotate the rosette by at least 360° during treatment, a device could be used as can be seen in Fig. 5: Above the rosette blank 40 moving in the direction of arrow 46 with the rotary table, a hollow cylinder piece 48 is arranged which is arranged so firmly with respect to the nozzle 120

is that the jet passes through the cylinder 48 in such a way that some of the balls or particles hit the surface 42 directly, see the indicated direction of flight with the reference number 50, while other balls, located more at the edge of the jet bundle, hit the inner surface of the cylinder 48, see reference number 52 and then, in a different direction, hit the surface 44 of the rosette 40 laterally and bring about the desired surface treatment there. This simple arrangement therefore enables the simultaneous treatment of both the surface 42 and the surface 44 lying perpendicular to it.

It is not necessary to explain in more detail that the arrangement according to Fig. 4 enables continuous treatment operation by replacing fully irradiated door handles 18 with ones that have not yet been irradiated at a specific point on the turntable, for example by an operator. The same applies to the rosettes 40. The treatment time can be influenced as desired by the rotation speed of the turntable 14.

The surface 52 according to Fig. 2 or 54 according to Fig. 1 can remain untreated in many applications because this surface is located in the direction of the door leaf and is therefore normally not visible and is not touched. In the case of glass doors, however, the treatment could be useful, in which case a further nozzle 220 according to Fig. 4 could be provided to cover this surface.

In the embodiment according to Fig. 2, the handle 38 is essentially one-piece. In the embodiment according to Fig. 1, the door handle consists of two parts, namely a shaft part into which a handle part is fitted, for example by welding. This creates corner and weld seam areas 56, 58, which according to conventional methods

by grinding and brushing cannot always be treated optimally, at least this method of treatment is very time-consuming. The method according to the invention simplifies the surface treatment in these critical areas considerably.

In particular, these seam areas 56 could again be simultaneously detected with a similar arrangement as described in Fig. 5. It is therefore not necessary to turn the handle back and forth several times in order to expose all corner areas to the particle beam.

The treatment is not only beneficial for fittings such as the door handles described, but also for supports and aids consisting of pipes, sheets, handles, plates and similar objects made of stainless steel that come into contact with water and/or serve as a gripping surface. It is particularly beneficial for wet rooms that are to be used by physically disabled people and where it is particularly important that they can hold on securely.

Thus, Fig. 3 shows a perspective view of a toilet seat lifting device known per se, which can be set up next to a normal toilet and which comprises a fold-down auxiliary seat 113 which lies above the regular toilet seat and makes it easier for the disabled person to sit down on the toilet, as the seat surface 113 moves slowly downwards under the weight of the person sitting down against spring force and under the effect of damping devices until a suitable position for use is reached. The disabled person can hold on to a handle-like frame 115 which is made of tubular material and is composed of straight pieces 117 and angle pieces 119. The frame can only be moved with difficulty

in one piece, it is therefore usually assembled from several parts, whereby the parts are usually welded together. Previously, these pipes were made from pipe material with a profiled surface, so that at least the straight pieces 117 are sufficiently profiled to give the operator a firm grip. The angle pieces 119 - if the bends were not made by complex bending processes - were separate parts welded to the straight pieces 117, so that weld seams 121 were formed, which then had to be processed to remove discoloration, excess weld material and to remove sharp-edged joints, for example by grinding or brushing. However, these processing processes also made the profiled surface of the pipe material smooth again, so that on the one hand it resulted in an unsightly appearance, and on the other hand the desired profiling, which increased grip, was no longer present in these areas.

According to the invention, a surface is also present in these joint and weld seam areas that meets the requirements for grip, as well as a surface that does not allow limescale and water stains to become visible. Such stains can arise if, for example, a shower device is installed next to the toilet, the splashing water from which not only affects the handle frame 115, but also parts attached to this frame, such as a toilet paper holder 123, or the casing 125 for the spring and damping device of the toilet seat lifting device. Here there are larger flat surfaces that were previously welded together from profiled sheet metal, which in turn causes the same problems at the weld seams as described with regard to the frame 115.

or which have been sanded and brushed to a shine, which leads to the disadvantage that water and limescale surfaces become visible again and more plastering is required to achieve a pleasant appearance.

The surface according to the invention on such components, such as the housing 125, makes it possible to produce a support and auxiliary means that does not have these disadvantageous properties.

Claims (5)

DR.-iNG. E RN ST STRATMAN N PATENT ATTORNEY D-4000 DÜSSELDORF 1 · SCHADOWPLATZ 9 Düsseldorf, 19 Sept. 1990 9026-2 Gm Hans Grimberg Edelstahl GmbH D-4300 Essen 18 Protection claims: 1. Support and aid devices which are intended in particular for elderly or physically disabled people and which are composed of tubes which consist at least on their surface of a stainless steel alloy, in particular of stainless steel, characterized in that the exposed surface of the support and aid devices, in particular in the areas which are visible and/or serve as a gripping surface, is a surface which has been mattified, preferably austenitically hardened, by particle irradiation (with steel balls or glass balls). 2. Support and auxiliary means according to claim 1, wherein the support and auxiliary means are composed of parts welded together (such as pipe sections and angle pieces), characterized in that the connecting points, in particular the weld seams POSTSCHECKI berlin west (bank code 10010010) 132736-109 · deutsche bank (bank code 3OO7OO1O) 6160253 rich, have a ground surface that is matt due to particle irradiation. 3. Support and auxiliary means according to claim 2, characterized in that straight pipe sections and/or flat housing surfaces (125) consist of surface-profiled material (such as knob profile, drop profile, letter profile), which profiled material has a surface that is matt due to the particle irradiation. 4. Support and aid device according to claim 1, 2 or 3, characterized in that the matt surface is a surface mattified by irradiation with glass beads or stainless steel beads. 5. Support and aid according to claim 1, 2 or 3, characterized in that the matt surface is a matt and austenitically hardened surface made of glass balls or stainless steel balls, in particular stainless steel balls with a hardened surface, the diameter of which is less than 1 mm, preferably less than 0.1 mm.