EP1573157B1 - Sliding door device and method for closing sliding doors - Google Patents

Abstract

A method and device for closing sliding doors are presented. The device includes a U-shaped channel having a carriage disposed therein. The carriage includes a plurality of wheels and side and bottom bores. The bottom bore is adapted to receive a portion of a connecting element and the side bore is adapted to receive a portion of a bolt. An electromechanical unit partially expels the bolt into the side bore, thus locking the sliding door.

Description

The invention relates to a sliding door device with a device for closing sliding doors of the sliding door device, which are preferably glass sliding doors.

Furthermore, the invention relates to a method for closing sliding doors.

The German Offenlegungsschrift DE 101 07 028 A1 describes a sliding on a running and guide rail horizontally movable and supported on rollers sliding door. The sliding door has at one end face a designed as a stopper bolt, which runs when closing the sliding door against a stop on the door. The door carries on top of a snap of a two-stage acting locking element which can engage with a mandrel in a recess of the running and guide rail. If, when closing the door, the bolt abuts against the door, the control rod connected to the bolt is displaced longitudinally within the door and the mandrel, which is prestressed by a spring, is released. As a result, the mandrel is conveyed vertically upwards and moved into the locking position in the recess. By means of a separate located on the front of the door handle the mandrel is driven back into the door, causing a bias of the spring mounted on the mandrel. At the same time the bolt is pressed against the door frame. The door can be opened.

The German Offenlegungsschrift DE 36 02 440 A1 describes a drive for sliding guide sliding windows, sliding doors, machine parts or the like. The drive has a run in a U-shaped track rail carriage on which the sliding windows or doors or machine parts are supported by trunnions, which in turn are resiliently mounted with the interposition of elastomeric parts by means arranged on the carriage bearing elements. The bearing elements are movable relative to the respective carriage. The bearing elements consist of a arranged in a transverse bore of the carriage bearing pin, wherein the bearing pin is surrounded by at least one elastomer portion like a ring. According to a preferred embodiment of the drive, there are two elastomer portions for supporting the bearing pin in the transverse bore, on both sides of the trunnion.

The German Patent DE 195 33 153 C2 discloses a sliding door with emergency opening or emergency closing device. The sliding door consists of two door leaves, the door leaves each run by means of two rollers along a horizontally extending guide rail. Above the guide rail, one side of a helical spring is stationary and a second side of the helical spring is secured to an anchor carriage carrying armature, with which it cooperates with a stationary electromagnet. The door leaves of the sliding door are driven in opposite directions via a drive motor, wherein the coil spring is tensioned by one of the two door wings during the closing of the door leaves. The Mitnehmerlaufwagen acts on a mounted on the voltage of the coil spring triggering door leaf stop.

In an emergency situation - power interruption - the armature releases from the electromagnet, so that the driver carriage over the stop acts on the helical spring exciting door and a toothed belt and a steel cable on the second door, the two leaves are pulled into the open position.

The German Patent DE 41 06 117 C2 discloses a sliding door guide for shower enclosures and the like, which simplifies a guide at least one door segment of the sliding door using rigid guide elements in their construction and in their handling when engaging and disengaging the guide elements from a track groove. For this purpose, film hinges are arranged between a mounting foot and the track groove, wherein a retractable and foldable profile part is locked both in the retracted position and in the unfolded position.

The German Patent DE 199 08 191 C1 describes an automatic wing or door system for actuating an actuator of an additional actuator without using an additional drive device. Upon reaching a closed position of at least one wing of the wing or door system is parallel to the direction of movement of the wing and firmly connected to selbigem drive or drive transmission unit over a distance in the closing direction weiterbewegbar. The additional displacement will be used to activate or switch the additional actuator. The additional actuator has a lever mechanism for manual activation or switching of the additional actuator.

The Indian German patent application DE 195 39 014 A1 disclosed sliding door fitting can be used in particular for glass doors. It will be below a Ceiling device mounted a stationary profile bar on which a running rail is mounted for a roller movable on rollers. The carriage in turn is connected via orthogonal acting to the running direction of the carriage glass door hinges with the glass door. A derailment of the carriage from the running rail prevent different locking devices as needed. It is common to all institutions that a bolt arranged on the carriage engages under a stop rail, wherein a driving pin for mechanical guidance of the bolt paragraphs for a locking of the driving pin has. To open and close the locking device, the bolt is moved in the horizontal direction away from or towards the stop rail.

The German Patent DE 195 31 040 C2 describes a sliding shutter for window or door elements, which can be moved along a horizontal guide rail. The guide rail is preferably mounted within a wall. For reduced friction movement of the sliding shutter mounted rollers are used. The sliding shutter essentially allows two end positions. The first end position is obtained by sliding the sliding shutter completely in front of the window or the door element, and the second occurs in the event that the sliding shutter is completely adjacent to the window. If the sliding shutter in one of the two end positions, an electromechanically activatable bolt causes the locking of the sliding load in the corresponding position by the bolt extends in an axis extending vertically to the direction of displacement and thus takes the only remaining degree of freedom of the sliding load.

In the case of the known sliding doors, a continuous functional performance of the respective sliding door mechanisms is barely or only unsatisfactorily solved in the event of a failure of external influencing variables required for the functioning of the sliding doors.

From the German patent application DE 42 34 899 A1 Furthermore, a sliding door system according to the preamble of claim 1 shows that has two sliding sliding leaves. On the sliding wings pawls are provided which comprise a horizontally aligned locking pin when the sliding leaves are in the closed position and the locking bolt in the locked position. The locking bolt can be brought by means of an electromagnetic locking drive of the locking position in the release position and vice versa. Furthermore, the locking drive has a hand lever for unlocking the locking bolt.

It is an object of the invention to develop an existing device in such a way that a sliding door system arises, in which the sliding door can be closed and unlocked as easily as possible.

According to the invention this object is achieved by a sliding door device according to claim 1 and by a method according to claim 18.

Advantageous embodiments and further developments of the invention are subject matter of claims 2 to 17, 19 and 20.

In particular, the invention provides for designing a sliding door device by a locking mechanism fastened to a stationary part of the sliding door such that the locking mechanism has a hybrid construction which is not acted upon by a further external means.

The term hybrid in the sense of the present invention means in particular an interaction of an electrical or electromagnetic component with a mechanical or pneumatic component.

This results in a sliding door device, which ensures a desired operation even in situations of lack of external factors, and which has a particularly design-optimized construction, which ensures a high degree of security when closing the doors.

Advantageously, the hybrid structure provides a closure technique which, based on an electromechanical mechanism of action, exhibits a flexible mode of operation adapted to the external circumstances of the device.

This has the advantage that the means for closing can be realized without additional construction work on the sliding door. The sliding door itself has a means of motion control. This advantageous development of the invention makes it possible to use a variety of different sliding door materials, as a further design measure for locking is independent of the sliding door material is not required.

Particularly suitable door materials are glass, wood, plastics, metals, safety materials, fire protection material or composite materials.

The device according to the invention provides a mechanism which, in the event of absence of all external signals required for the system-related functioning of the sliding door system, causes unlocking of a locked sliding door.

An exemplary situation for symbolizing the resulting advantages results, for example, in the case of a room security system. Among other things, if this room safety system is designed so that closing of one or all sliding doors located within a room complex is triggered by external trip signals, the question of the functional status of the respective sliding doors arises in the event of a spontaneous but nevertheless permanent absence of all external signals.

The device according to the invention for closing sliding doors ensures that a sliding door unlocks, for example, even in the event of a power failure, thus allowing the persons or animals located inside the room delimited by the sliding door to leave the room. This situation is in the sense of Protection of persons or animals of crucial importance.

For example, the term "room" refers to offices, private rooms, commercial areas, public facilities or isolated animal keeping areas.

The external signals needed for systemic functioning of the sliding door system can be of any type and shape, using both coded and uncoded signal sizes.

Further advantages and expedient developments of the invention are the following description of preferred embodiments of the invention with reference to the drawings and the dependent claims.

Fig. 1

eine schematische Darstellung einer Ausführungsform der erfindungsgemäßen Vorrichtung und

Fig. 2

einen Querschnitt durch die in Fig. 1 dargestellte Vorrichtung.

From the drawings shows:

Fig. 1

a schematic representation of an embodiment of the device according to the invention and

Fig. 2

a cross section through the device shown in Fig. 1.

The illustrated preferred device according to the invention is constructed such that a sliding door is parallel and relative to a mounted on a wall or under a ceiling rail 4 by means of at least one carriage 1 is displaceable. The running rail is fixedly mounted and has a U-shaped cross section 4, which is designed so that can move within the U-shaped cross-section of the roller 7 located on rollers 7 along the longitudinal extent of the track rail. Not closed part of the U-shaped cross section is hereinafter referred to as the gap 8 of the track, the gap preferably downwards, towards the ground, has, so that a connection by means of a connecting element between the carriage and the sliding door is advantageously carried out through the gap of the track rail ,

Due to the resulting hanging structure of the sliding door attached to the carriage, it is possible to provide an extremely easy to maintain as well as easy to manufacture sliding door device. Furthermore, results from the advantageous arrangement of the carriage within the track a particularly compact device, since the space requirement of such an arrangement concept is considerably lower than that of a device in which the carriage moves outside the track along and the connecting element between the carriage and sliding door the carriage is guided around.

In a further advantageous embodiment, a second, in turn at least one carriage-containing, running rail is attached to the floor below the sliding door. The advantage of a second running rail, which is located at the lower end of the sliding door, lies in the additional guide element, which leads to a further stabilization of the movement process of the sliding door along the running rail.

The carriage is preferably designed so that in each case two axes are located at the front part and at the rear part of a rectangular compact body, at the ends of each of which a roller is applied. The rectangular body has along its longitudinal extent on each side of a cutout, the geometric shape preferably corresponds to a circular sector. The circle diameter of the Circle sector is determined by the magnitude of the diameter of the rollers.

In this way, all of the four preferably, mounted on a carriage, rollers each extend into the rectangular body, which allows an extremely compact design of the entire carriage. The gap between the roller outer surface and the cutout on the rectangular body is expediently only a few millimeters. In particular, the gap is about 0.1 to 100 millimeters, with values between 1 millimeter and 30 millimeters being particularly preferred.

On the underside of the carriage there is an inwardly extending thread, by means of which the connecting element mounted on the sliding door permanently and firmly establishes contact with the carriage via a screw connection. Since the connecting element is in constant contact with the sliding door, any relative movement of the carriage relative to the stationary running rail is coupled to a movement of the sliding door.

Preferably, a total of two carriages are within a running rail, as this increased stability of the sliding door device is achieved. The ultimate criterion for determining the absolute number of carriages is usually based on the length of the running rail and / or on the weight of the sliding door.

Furthermore, at least one carriage per rail has a bore on one of its two side surfaces and a small magnet which is fixedly mounted on the carriage. The hole is used in a case of locking the sliding door to one out of a mounted on the running rail, rectangular, electromechanical unit out to absorb activatable bolt. As a result, the degree of freedom of the bolt receiving the carriage is taken, the carriage is fixed within the track and thus also the sliding door.

The treads within the track are two short projections extending the full length of the track, the projections at the ends of the two walls of the U-shaped track facing each other but not in contact with each other along that extent, leaving a gap between them results in the treads. In this type of training of the track or the corresponding treads the carriage can be housed completely movable within the track. The running surfaces of the track allow a low-friction rolling of the rollers of the carriage.

The gap between the treads is at least so large that the screw connection between the carriage located within the running rail and the connecting element of the sliding door can take place unhindered.

The degree of freedom of the carriage is inhibited by at least two end pieces mounted along the track rail.

In a particularly preferred embodiment, the track rail made of aluminum, which has the advantage of having a particularly low-weight unit, while maintaining a high torsional stiffness of the track as a result of the U-shaped profile of the track.

This has the further advantage that even heavy sliding doors can be attached to the castors without the roller housing the running track in the course of use the sliding door system deformed such that a system-compatible operation is prevented.

The track is attached by means of a mounting bracket to a supporting element, wherein in a particularly preferred embodiment, at least two mounting brackets are attached at the two points along the track, which correspond to the selected end points of the carriage. As a result, the above-mentioned end pieces for limiting the horizontal degree of freedom of a carriage can be mounted on the mounting brackets, which allows a particularly elegant solution to the attachment of the end pieces.

In principle, the end pieces can be attached at any desired position along the running rail through a bore on one of the two longitudinal sides of the U-shaped profile, so that also changed environmental situations, for example, by an altered door passage area can be subsequently included.

The electromechanical unit, which blocks at least one carriage in the case of locking, is preferably mounted at the level of the track installed under the ceiling, optionally also in the case of a further track located on the ground and at least one carriage of this track are blocked by the electromechanical unit in the event of locking can.

In a further embodiment, the electromechanical unit is mounted directly on the track rail.

The installation of the electromechanical unit is preferably carried out only after completion of the installation of the complete sliding door assembly, that is, only after the The sliding door can already move freely along the mounting rail mounted on the mounting rail. Subsequently, the two end pieces are fixed, wherein the final position of the end pieces is defined by the released through the sliding door passage area.

The sliding door is then brought into the end position in which the space located behind the passage area is no longer accessible. This position of the sliding door corresponds to the position from which the sliding door is no longer movable in the event of locking. At least one carriage is in this position of the sliding door on an end piece. On the side on which the carriage rests on an end piece, the exact position of the used for locking hole of the carriage is measured.

At the level of the vertical projection of the bore on the carriage on the running rail, the running rail is now provided with a bore whose diameter corresponds to that of the bore of the carriage, so that the two opposite holes along their connecting line are exactly congruent.

The rectangular-shaped electromechanical unit has on the front side of its metal housing via a circular opening from which the bolt can extend perpendicular to the end face. To implement the expulsion of the bolt from the housing, an electromechanical drive is used, which responds to an external control signal. If the bolt is not in a rest position, the position in which the bolt remains completely within the housing, a spring force acts on the bolt, which runs counter to the movement of the bolt when expelled from the spool. This has the consequence that the force to expel the bolt from its rest position acts opposite to the spring force. The term spring force is not limited to a force generated by a spring force, but also includes equivalent forces that can be generated for example by a pneumatic means.

Another particularly advantageous embodiment of the sliding door device uses a constant current flow as an external signal. External signals represent control signals according to the invention. Consequently, a coil mounted within the electromechanical unit is subjected to a constant current flow, so that a voltage is induced. The Lorentz force resulting from this physical process is directed so that the bolt located at rest within the coil is partially driven out of the coil and thus out of the housing opening along its degree of freedom. The bolt is dimensioned such that an end position of the bolt, that is, when the bolt has traveled the maximum distance out of the spool, sufficient to extend through the bore in the track rail and through the bore on the carriage.

As long as the external signal, in this embodiment so the current flow, is applied to the electromechanical unit, the bolt is in the end position. The sliding door is locked.

This results in a particularly advantageous embodiment of the device according to the invention, since the sliding door system is designed so that a failure of the external signal can remain the bolt only under the influence of the spring force. As a consequence of this particularly expedient procedure, the sliding door is unlocked in the event of the absence of the external signal, since the bolt in this situation is returned to its rest position under the influence of the spring force.

The invention is characterized in that in addition to the aforementioned operation of the bolt, a mechanical device is attached to the electromechanical unit, by means of which a manual unlocking of the sliding door is made possible independently of the external signals. For this purpose, located at the bottom of the rectangular housing a slot-shaped opening, out of which extends a narrow about 10mm long pin. A movement of the pin along the longitudinal extent of the slot-shaped opening causes the mechanical return of the bolt until the rest position of the bolt is reached in the coil.

The manual unlocking pin of the sliding door has a threading by means of which an additional means for actuating the manual unlocking device for extending the pin can be attached.

The device according to the invention triggers a locking operation only when the magnet attached to a carriage induces a voltage within the electromechanical device, the carriage preferably being in an end position for this purpose.

LIST OF REFERENCE NUMBERS

1

carriage

2

Bore on the track rail

3

Bore on the carriage

4

runner

5

mounting brackets

6

tail

7

Rollers on the carriage

8th

gap

Claims (20)

1. A sliding door device with a device for closing sliding doors of the sliding door device, whereby the sliding doors can be moved parallel and relative to a stationary running rail (4) of the sliding door device that can be attached to a wall or below a ceiling and that has a U-shaped cross section, by at least one carriage (1) of the sliding door device, said carriage (1) being supported on rollers (7) and having two side surfaces, whereby furthermore, the carriage (1) and the sliding door are connected by means of a connecting element through a gap (8) in the running rail (4), whereby the sliding door device comprises an electromechanical unit mounted on the running rail (4), whereby the electromechanical unit, in the presence of an external control signal that triggers a locking operation, can block at least one carriage (1) by means of a bolt, and whereby furthermore, for the manual unlocking, the electromechanical unit has a slit-type opening on the bottom of the housing from which a pin extends, whereby a movement of the pin along the longitudinal extension of the slit-type opening causes the mechanical retraction of the bolt,
   characterized in that
   in the locking operation, the bolt extends perpendicularly out of a circular opening on one end face of a metal housing of the electromechanical unit and the bolt is dimensioned in such a way that, in a final position, the bolt extends through a bore (2) in the running rail (4) as well as through a bore (3) on one of the two side surfaces of the carriage (1).
2. The device according to Claim 1,
   characterized in that
   said device comprises at least one force-generating means that generates a force that acts on the bolt when it is outside of a resting position and whereby the force is oriented opposite to the direction of movement of the bolt when it is being expelled from a spool that is installed inside the electromechanical unit.
3. The device according Claim 2,
   characterized in that
   a spring force acts on the bolt when it is outside of the resting position.
4. The device according to Claim 1,
   characterized in that
   a constant current flow is used as an external control signal.
5. The device according to Claim 4,
   characterized in that
   a spool installed inside the electromechanical unit is supplied with the constant current flow, so that a resulting Lorentz force partially expels the bolt-which is situated inside the spool - out of the spool.
6. The device according to Claim 1,
   characterized in that
   the pin for the manual unlocking of the sliding door has a thread with which an additional means for actuating the manual unlocking means is attached in order to lengthen the pin.
7. The device according to Claim 1,
   characterized in that
   the carriage (1) is constructed in such a way that, on the front part as well as on the back part of a compact body, there are two axles with a roller (7) at each end, whereby, along its longitudinal extension, the body has a cut-out whose shape corresponds to a sector of a circle, whereby the sector of the circle is determined by a circle with a diameter in the order of magnitude of the diameter of the rollers (7).
8. The device according to Claim 7,
   characterized in that
   several rollers (7) mounted on a carriage (1) each extend into a rectangular body of the carriage (1), whereby the gap between the outer surface of the rollers and the cut-out on the rectangular body is 1 mm to 30 mm.
9. The device according to one or more of the preceding claims,
   characterized in that
   on the bottom of the carriage (1), there is a thread extending inwards by means of which the connection element mounted on the sliding door permanently and securely establishes contact with the carriage (1) via a screwed connection.
10. The device according to one or more of the preceding claims,
    characterized in that
    a degree of freedom of at least one carriage (1) is inhibited by at least one end piece (6) mounted along the running rail (4).
11. The device according to Claim 10,
    characterized in that
    the end pieces (6) for limiting the horizontal degree of freedom of a carriage (1) are attached at any desired position along the running rail (4) by means of a bore on one of the two lengthwise sides of the U-shaped profile.
12. The device according to one or more of the preceding claims,
    characterized in that
    the running rail (4) is made of aluminum.
13. The device according to one or more of the preceding claims,
    characterized in that
    the running rail (4) is attached by means of a fastening angle bracket (5) to a load-bearing element.
14. The device according to one of Claims 10 to 13,
    characterized in that at least two fastening angle brackets (5) are attached to selected end points of the carriage (1) along the running rail (4), whereby the end pieces (6) are located on the fastening angle brackets (5).
15. The device according to one or more of the preceding claims,
    characterized in that
    a second running rail (4), once again comprising at least one carriage (1), is installed on the bottom below the sliding door.
16. The device according to one or more of the preceding claims,
    characterized in that
    the sliding doors delimit spaces, whereby these spaces are commercially used areas, public facilities, offices, residential rooms or separated areas for keeping animals.
17. The device according to one or more of the preceding claims,
    characterized in that
    the sliding door material contains one or more of the following components: glass, wood, plastics, metals, safety materials, fire-protection material or composite materials.
18. A method for closing sliding doors, whereby the sliding doors can be moved by at least one carriage (1) along a running rail (4),
    characterized in that
    a magnet attached to the carriage (1) induces a voltage as a control signal within an electromechanical unit, thus triggering a locking operation, so that at least one carriage (1) is blocked by a bolt, whereby a spool installed inside the electromechanical unit is supplied with a constant current flow, so that a resulting Lorentz force at least partially expels the bolt - which is situated inside the spool - out of the spool and, in a final position, the bolt extends through a bore (2) in the running rail (4) as well as through a bore (3) on the carriage (1).
19. The method according to Claim 18,
    characterized in that
    a force is generated that acts on the bolt when it is outside of a resting position and whereby the force is oriented opposite to the direction of movement of the bolt when it is being expelled from the spool.
20. The method according to one or both of Claims 18 and 19,
    characterized in that
    an absence of the control signal unlocks the sliding door, whereby the bolt is returned to its resting position under the influence of the spring force.

Images