Classifications

• • B—PERFORMING OPERATIONS; TRANSPORTING
  • B66—HOISTING; LIFTING; HAULING
  • B66B—ELEVATORS; ESCALATORS OR MOVING WALKWAYS
  • B66B13/00—Doors, gates, or other apparatus controlling access to, or exit from, cages or lift well landings
  • B66B13/30—Constructional features of doors or gates
  • B66B13/303—Details of door panels
  • B66B13/305—Slat doors for elevators
• • E—FIXED CONSTRUCTIONS
  • E06—DOORS, WINDOWS, SHUTTERS, OR ROLLER BLINDS IN GENERAL; LADDERS
  • E06B—FIXED OR MOVABLE CLOSURES FOR OPENINGS IN BUILDINGS, VEHICLES, FENCES OR LIKE ENCLOSURES IN GENERAL, e.g. DOORS, WINDOWS, BLINDS, GATES
  • E06B9/00—Screening or protective devices for wall or similar openings, with or without operating or securing mechanisms; Closures of similar construction
  • E06B9/02—Shutters, movable grilles, or other safety closing devices, e.g. against burglary
  • E06B9/08—Roll-type closures
  • E06B9/11—Roller shutters
  • E06B9/13—Roller shutters with closing members of one piece, e.g. of corrugated sheet metal

Definitions

• the present invention concerns an elevator door folding around a vertical axis, during its opening or closing movement, as from the preamble of claim 1 .
• the present invention wants to propose another alternative of elevator cabin door folding around an axis with incorporated driving motor that allows realising an elevator cabin door of an extremely simple construction, of small overall dimension, since all the driving mechanisms are in practice located within the door itself, which can be supplied as pre-assembled unit, ready to be incorporated in the door final landing entrance and ideal to be combined with the landing entrance door that, according to the provisions on safety in force in the sector, shall in any way be operated (opened and closed) via dragging by the cabin door.
• the main characteristic of the proposed inventive solution is employing for handling the door, a motorised axis and energy accumulators as springs incorporated into the one and/or the other vertical axis around which the door is folded or winded.
• the vertical axis around which the door folds or winds, is subject to the action of an energy accumulator (a spring in a preferred embodiment) that exercises on the axis a sufficiently high torque in order to keep the door completely opened, overcoming an opposite force - to which the door itself is constantly subject to - that tends to close it, and that also in the maximal opened position of the door, whereby the opposite force is exercised on the door by means of an upper traction means and a lower traction means that wind around a second motorised vertical axis, assembled on the other side of the door.
• an energy accumulator a spring in a preferred embodiment
• This motorised axis which according to a preferred embodiment is made as an axis with electric motor with external rotor and internal stator is in a position of exercising on the traction means a force able to overcome the maximal torque exercised on the axis around which the door folds and in this way closing the door.
• the motor relieves the force applied on the motorized axis by the force accumulator when opening the door.
• a torque lower than the minimal one exercised on the vertical axis around which the door folds - or winds - when the door is fully opened, is exercised on the vertical axis around which the traction means wind.
• the basic concept of the invention is therefore that the axis around which the door folds (or wind) is always subject to a torque tending to keep the door opened by a energy accumulator, preferably made as cylindrical or helicoidal coil spring and from the other side of the door, being the one of the leaf, the door is always kept pulled with a balanced force (through two traction means, an upper one and a lower one).
• a energy accumulator preferably made as cylindrical or helicoidal coil spring and from the other side of the door, being the one of the leaf
• the invention is then realised in its constructive advantages, which are entirely available if it is foreseen, as claimed in claim 1 , that the cabin door is combined with the landing entrance door.
• the coupling of the cabin door with the landing entrance door is currently requested by security reasons, because these imperatively foresee that the landing entrance door can only be opened by dragging by means of the cabin door. That is in order to prevent that the landing entrance door could inadvertently open without the cabin being present.
• the landing entrance door is a door folding or winding around a vertical axis during its closing and opening movement and that moreover the door is constantly subject to a tractive force that tends to close it - as foreseen by the prescriptions on safety.
• tractive force must be overcome by the tractive force exercised on the door, in opposite direction, by the cabin door during its opening movement.
• the construction of the landing entrance door follows from the one of the cabin door, with the unique difference of not exhibiting a motorised vertical axis as the landing entrance door motorisation, as above-mentioned, takes place by dragging by means of the cabin door.
• Another purpose of the present invention is to provide a door for elevators that regroups all the wanted requirements for an innovative and efficient door:
• the above-mentioned aims can be achieved by means of an elevator door folding around a vertical axis in conformity with the characteristics of the dependent claims.
• They contain the fundamental measures to realize a fire- resistant door, which is either airtight to fire or resisting to fire for the minimal time defined by the laws and regulations in force (that can vary and indeed vary from Country to Country).
• Such measures are the rigidity around any imaginary horizontal axis and the folding around any vertical axis in order to be able to realise the rolling up of the door around a vertical axis, with a minimal bending radius (r), that is smaller than the tenth part of the thickness (d) of the door.
• FIG. 1 cabin door according to the invention, in a section along a horizontal plan, in its opened state, in a schematic representation to show the basic elements that constitute it.
• FIG. 4a and 4b the door according to the invention shown in its frame as a constructive unit, in Figure 4a in a closed state and in Figure 4b in an opened state,
• FIG. 7 a general view of the elevator standing on a floor with open doors.
• the first one concerns the fact that the invention refers essentially only to the construction of the cabin door, even if we are aware that the security reasons impose that the cabin door is always being coupled, in the standing points, with the landing entrance door and that indeed it constitutes the mechanically coupled driving element of the landing entrance door that can only open by dragging by means of the cabin door.
• the advantages offered by the invention concerning the possibility of adapting the cabin door as pre-assembled unit to be applied to the cabin, advantages essentially due to the possibility of rolling up the door around an axis and to its motorisation by means of a second motor axis incorporated in the axis itself, can generally be applied to whatever type of landing entrance door already known, for example also to a door with rigid shutter. It is true that if also the landing entrance door is made similarly to the one of the cabin - that is to say folding around an axis - other advantages can be obtained by the application of the present invention because it is possible to realise a total construction of the elevator, which is greatly simplified and that has a reduced overall dimension, since these characteristics are then applied also to the landing entrance door.
• This possibility, foreseen in claim 7, is surely a preferred embodiment of the invention, but it does not constitute in any way the only possible solution.
• the second point we want to mention is the one related to the forces at play in the field.
• the invention in its simple application as cabin door as well as in its combined version - according to claim 7 - as cabin door coupled with the landing entrance door, exhibits at least two energy accumulators (usually two springs) operating in opposition.
• the energy accumulators are even four which must evidently be chosen appropriately, in order to satisfy in particular to the precise legal provisions relative to the minimal and maximal forces to operate the doors in case of a breakdown etc. Therefore this requires a specific study about the elastic characteristics of the single springs which are taken into account as energy accumulators (or of the single counterweights, respectively brakes, if the torques necessary for operating the door or doors are realised by means of weight or breaking, as described below).
• Figures 1 and 2 are represented the essential elements of the inventive cabin door, the first with open door and the second with closed door in a section based on a horizontal plan.
• the door frame is systematically indicated with number 1 which is better seen in Figures 4a and 4b and that is made of a rectangular frame enclosing the full door.
• the door is guided by means of guides 3, 2 (see Figures 4a, 4b) along the upper and lower parts.
• the door itself is of the type folding around a vertical axis 4 (see Figures 1 , 2 and 3).
• the vertical axis 4 is inventively subj ect to the action of a first energy accumulator 5, indicated in Figures 1 and 2 symbolically by the dotting of the axis itself.
• the energy accumulator 5 exercises a sufficiently high torque on the axis 4 in order to keep the door fully open, overcoming an opposite force that tends to close the door. The opposite force is necessary since is important that the door, in whatever situation (open, semi-open or closed), is always energised.
• the energy accumulator 5 acting on the axis 4 is a cylindrical coil spring or a helicoidal coil spring that can- be preferably incorporated into the same axis, which must be, in such situation, hollow.
• a similar construction of a hollow axis with a cylindrical coil spring is shown, only as an example, in Figure 5. In any way, it is a constructive element known to the man skilled in the art.
• the above-mentioned opposite force - that keeps the elevator cabin door constantly pulled - is applied to the door itself by means of an upper traction means 6 and a lower traction means 7.
• the traction means 6, 7 winds around a second motorised vertical axis 8.
• a second energy accumulator 10 e.g. a coil spring.
• Within the axis 8 is placed an electric motor 18.
• the vertical axis 8 which lies on the opposite side of the cabin door in relation to the vertical axis 4, is therefore coupled with an electric motor 18 that is in a position of exercising on the traction means 6, 7 a force that can overcome the maximal torque exercised on the axis 4 around which the door folds and therefore close the door.
• the moment exercised by the energy accumulator 5 on the axis 4 will be in fact maximal when the door will be completely closed, since for example the spring that constitutes the energy accumulator 5 will be then pulled to the maximum. If the energy accumulator 5 has the form of a counterweight, the torque exercised on the axis 4 by the energy accumulator would be always constant.
• the motor that acts on the vertical axis 8 serves therefore only for opening or closing the door and its function will remain the same also in the event (represented in Figures 6, 7, 8 and obj ect of the dependent claims 7 and 8) in which the cabin door is coupled with the landing entrance door and open this one by dragging.
• the driving electric motor 18 of the second vertical axis 8 around which the traction means 6, 7 wind is incorporated into the vertical axis 8 itself, which is, in such circumstance, an hollow axis and it is made with internal stator and external rotor.
• the advantage of this solution is obvious and is intrinsic in the characteristics of the built-in motor that allow the realisation of a compact and fully pre-assembled door.
• this embodiment is not the only one desirable. Indeed we must keep in mind that, during the door opening, the only veritable function of the energy accumulator that acts on the winding vertical axis 8 of the traction means 6, 7 is that one of braking the door, so as to always generate a tension in the door itself.
• This effect of braking the door can therefore, according to an additional preferred embodiment form of the invention, be generated through the action of a mechanical brake or electrical brake (not shown) acting on the axis 8, directly or by means of the driving electric motor of the axis 8, that is to say of the elevator cabin door.
• the man skilled in the art knows how to produce a similar mechanically or electrically driven brake, so that we do not need to spend more time getting into more details.
• a feature sometimes necessary is the fact that the door must be "fireproofing ", that is to say that they must have the necessary characteristics of airtight closing, that is to say that, in practice, they must be made of an unique continuous surface without holes, passages, fissures, etc. and to be made of a fire-resistant material (metal or fire-resistant plastic etc.), so as to satisfy to the relative norms present in every Country.
• the present invention focus also on the mechanical properties that a similar door must po ssess for being used as elevator door and as a result realise the above-mentioned advantages as a similar door offers in the elevators field.
• the door is sufficiently rigid around any horizontal axis so as to satisfy to the legal provisions - which have already been mentioned - on the maximal deformability for permissible bending if stressed in its centre, in the closed state, with the horizontal force required from the norm.
• the door must therefore be rigid in relation to its vertical plan in order not to exceed a permissible maximal "bowing" .
• This legal provision is made in order to avoid that, in case of excessive filling of the cabin or if a person leans itself heavily against the inner door, this door can excessively bend outwards and jeopardise the elevator functionality.
• the door must be sufficiently folding around any vertical axis in order to be able to be folded with a bending radius r (see Figure 2) ten times lower than the thickness of the door indicated with d in Figures from 3a to 3f.
• d we indicate the overall thickness of the door, that is to say the maximal thickness measured over eventual ribs or reinforcement elements. This second provision gives therefore a precise indication about the radius of the rolling axis 4 and of the deviation of the door.
• the characteristics of the inventive elevator door are therefore the maximal folding around any vertical axis and the maximal resistance to bending in respect to every horizontal axis, where then this last characteristic is tied to legal provisions while the first one constitutes a free choice of the inventor and is tied to the constructive conditions that must be guaranteed in order of being able to benefit from the advantage foreseen by the invention.
• the continuous surface of the door is made of an unique foil of fire-resistant material, reinforced in at least one of the sides (in Figures 3b and 3c for example reinforced only on the upper side of the Figure) by means of vertical bars arranged at a mutual distance from each other and solidly fixed to the foil 39 along all their length. It must be specified that when we here speak about “vertical bars” we mean that these bars 3 10 are to be found in this position when the corresponding door is placed in the elevator in a working position.
• the foil of fire-resistant material (simple or compound, made for example as a sandwich of multiple material layers) has in itself already a sufficient bending resistance in the sense that it does not have (as shown for example in Figure 3a) to be equipped with any reinforcement by means of vertical bars or other reinforcement elements, if it also maintains the necessary folding properties to satisfy the conditions requested by the claims.
• the bars 3 10 have a cylindrical section shape. This shape is ideal, since it allows the door folding in the winding or deviation point, in practice over all the surface dimension (that would not be the case if the bars 310 had, as an example, a rectangu lar section and were solidly fixed to the foil of fire- resistant material along one of their sides).
• FIG. 3f and 3e Another embodiment o f the invention is represented in Figures 3f and 3e, based on which the continuous surface is made of an unique foil 39', respectively 39", exhibiting, at regular mutual distances, vertical ribs 31 1 obtained by means of press forming of the foil in a die (case of ribs 31 1 of Figures 31 ) or by means of local deformation of foil 39" (case of ribs 31 1 of Figure 3e).
• the fireproofing continuous surface that is to say the foil of fire-resistant material
• the fireproofing continuous surface is made of a metallic sheet, preferably of stainless steel with a thickness comprised between 0,2 and 1 millimetres, preferably 0.3 millimetres.
• This particular embodiment is particularly suitable in order to realise the solutions shown in Figures 3c and 3e.
• the advantages related to the use of a foil of metallic sheet and in particular of stainless steel, are more than obvious (fire-resistance, high elasticity coefficient, etc). Such solutions require in any event the use of appropriate vertical reinforcements as previously described .
• the fireproofing continuous surface is made of a foil of fire-resistant plastic material 39, with a thickness comprised between 2 and 10 mil l imetres, preferably 3 millimetres.
• the problem of such a foil of fire-resistant plastic material, of which today many types with different names and brands are marketed, is the one of the bending resistance that, as wanted by the present invention, must be high around the horizontal axes when the door is assembled into the elevator.
• Another embodiment which has the advantage of allowing obtaining the maximal reduction of the overall dimension laterally to the elevator cabin, foresees that the bending radius r is comprised between 3 and 20 centimetres.
• the folding elevator door can favourably be made as rolling up door or winding door around a vertical axis 4 ( Figures 1 and 2) placed on the door opening side or also that the door is folded of 90° from its opening side, as shown with the landing entrance door 1 1 of Figure 6 and is guided by means of upper and lower guides 2, 3, which are straight after such bending.
• the handling of the external door will preferably take place via dragging by means of the corresponding cabin door, while in the event of rolling up door, the handling of the door will preferably take place individually, motorising the corresponding rolling axis 4 or 12,
• the fireproofing continuous surface respectively the foil of fire-resistant material
• the cabin door can be coupled, in the elevator halt points, with the landing entrance door according to the legal provisions.
• the same elements of Figures 1 to 5 are indicated with the same reference numbers and are not mentioned any more.
• the landing entrance door 1 1 is also a door folding or winding around a vertical axis 12 during its closing and opening movement. Moreover, (according to what the specific laws and regulations foresee), the landing entrance door 1 1 is mechanically dragged by the cabin door during its opening.
• the cabin door is equipped with a dragging element 13, which has the shape of a lock dragging a counter-hook 14 fixed at the extremity of the landing entrance door 1 1.
• the landing entrance door 1 1 shows the vertical axis 12 around which it folds - or it winds - on the same side in which the cabin door has the vertical axis 4 around which it folds or it winds (in the Figure a winding axis is always shown, but the invention can also be more or less suitably applied if the axes 4 and 12 are "only" bending axes of 90° of the door).
• the landing entrance door 1 1 must be constantly subj ect to a tractive force that tends to close it and that must be overcome by the tractive force exercised on it, in opposite direction, by dragging, by means of the cabin door during its opening movement.
• the landing entrance door 1 1 is therefore subject to the tractive force exercised from the two traction means, an upper one 15 and a lower one 16, where then both traction means wind around a second vertical axis 17 of the landing entrance door 1 1 on which a torque is exercised by means of a energy accumulator (not shown, but fully similar in the construction, if not in the shape, to the one acting on the axis 8 of the cabin door) .
• the energy accumulator which exercises the torque on the vertical axis 17 around which the traction means 15, 16 of the landing entrance door 1 1 wind, is also made - as in the case of the energy accumulators for the other axes 4, 8, 12 - as cylindrical or helicoidal coil spring.
• the vertical axis 17 is not motorised, it would not be possibil e to foresee here a brake as an alternative to a spring, while a counterweight would be possible for the production of the torque.
• the characteristics of the different energy accumulators that can be taken into account for the realisation of the elevator cabin door, particularly in its combination with the landing entrance door, must be chosen so as to be able of satisfying to the legal requirements related to the minimal and maximal efforts for a person to open the doors from the inside or from the outside in case of a breakdown.
• These can be easily calculated by an expert constructor and can also be easily realised in the practice by means of adopting the available energy accumulator types adapted for each case.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Structural Engineering (AREA)
• Architecture (AREA)
• Civil Engineering (AREA)
• Elevator Door Apparatuses (AREA)
• Component Parts Of Construction Machinery (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (4)

Publications (1)

Family

ID=34811547

Family Applications (1)

Country Status (10)

Families Citing this family (6)

Family Cites Families (11)

• 2005
  • 2005-01-21 MX MXPA06008177A patent/MXPA06008177A/es active IP Right Grant
  • 2005-01-21 JP JP2006549827A patent/JP5042635B2/ja not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2005-01-21 NZ NZ548592A patent/NZ548592A/en not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2005-01-21 BR BRPI0506973-4A patent/BRPI0506973A/pt not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2005-01-21 EP EP05700325A patent/EP1706348A2/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2005-01-21 AU AU2005206237A patent/AU2005206237B2/en not_active Ceased
  • 2005-01-21 WO PCT/CH2005/000030 patent/WO2005070808A2/en not_active Ceased
  • 2005-01-21 SG SG200900264-3A patent/SG163444A1/en unknown
  • 2005-01-21 CA CA2554615A patent/CA2554615C/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
• 2006
  • 2006-08-21 NO NO20063732A patent/NO20063732L/no not_active Application Discontinuation

Non-Patent Citations (1)

Also Published As

Similar Documents

Legal Events