GB2029880A

GB2029880A - Doors for industrial buildings

Info

Publication number: GB2029880A
Application number: GB7930225A
Authority: GB
Original assignee: UTEC AB
Current assignee: UTEC AB
Priority date: 1978-09-05
Filing date: 1979-08-31
Publication date: 1980-03-26
Also published as: FI792759A; SE7809323L; DK154789C; DK368279A; NO792841L; DK154789B; FR2435590A1; NL7906524A; GB2029880B; DE2935876A1; SE420751B; JPS5561676A; DE2935876C2; NL189725C; NL189725B

Abstract

A doorway especially for industrial buildings is divided into sections by vertical pillars (7), which can be folded up on pivots (13) from a vertical position to a horizontal position leaving the doorway clear when the doors are rolled up. The pillars also bear guide-ways for the edges of the doors which may be of flexible material (2) with cross-bars (3). <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION A door This invention relates to a door for buildings requiring a large door opening, for example hangars, garages, storehouses, welding-sheds, wood driers etc.

Known doors of this type cannot be adjusted to the objects to be passed through the door into and out of the building, but often a portion of the opening is exposed which is much greater than necessary for the object in question to be passed in or out. Consequently, unnecessarily great amounts of heated air can flow out through the door opening which, of course, implies unnecessarily high heating costs.

Another essential disadvantage of known large-surface doors is that they are expensive to manufacture, mostly because of the great dimensions they require for being capable of resisting wind forces, which are not proportional to the door length but increase considerably with greater door length.

A door according to the present invention is divided into sections by means of vertical pillars arranged in the door opening and capable individually to be folded up from their vertical and windforce receving position to å position exposing the door opening, and each section can be opened and closed individually.

The sections may have equal width, but different widths of the sections are preferred, because a higher degree of adjustability is obtained thereby, and for this reason it also is preferable to design every door section so as to be openable upward.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described by way of example and with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a front view of a door according to the invention; Figure 2shows on an enlarged scale a portion of a pillar folded up in Fig. 1; Figure 3 is a section along the line Ill-Ill in Fig. 2; Figure 4 is a view on an enlarged scale for illustrating the attaching of the lower portion of a pillar; and Figure 5 is a section along the line V-V in Fig. 4.

The door according to the present invention comprises several sections 1 arranged to the side of each other in one and the same door opening. In Fig. 1 one section is shown closed while the other sections are shown opened. According to the invention, each of the sections 1 of the door is capable to act as a separate door, i.e. every door section 1 can be opened and closed individually, but it also can, of course, be opened and closed simultaneously with one or several or with all of the remaining sections 1 comprised in the door.

The sections 1 in Fig. 1 are shown to have equal width, but it is advantageous to design the sections with different widths and to be opened in an upward direction.

With the embodiment of a door according to the invention shown in Fig. 1 by way of example, every door section 1 can be opened in upward direction, and every such section comprises lateral pieces 2 of a flexible material, for example reinforced plastics fabric, artificial leather or the like, which are connected to each other by cross-bars 3, which are located suitably spaced between said lateral pieces and guided with their end portions in guide bars 4 provided on both sides of the door section 1 in question. Every door section 1 is opened by hoisting the lowermost cross-bar, which thereby takes along the cross-bars lying thereabove until all cross-bars are stacked one upon the other and the lateral pieces 2 are in folded state suspended on the outside.Said hoisting operation is effected by a hoist means, which is located in a door box, i.e. a box-shaped beam 6, which is attached upwardly in the door opening and connected to the lowermost cross-bar of the door section by one or more hoist ropes.

Pillars 7 are arranged between the door sections which carry or may constitute said guide bars 4 required for guiding the end portions of the respective door section. Guide bars 4 are attached, in addition to the pillars 7, also to the two vertical defining surfaces 8 of the door opening. The pillars 7 are upwardly pivotally mounted and can, each by a double-acting piston-cylinder device 9, individually be folded up from a vertical forcereceiving position to a substantially horizontal position, in which the door opening is exposed. The lower end of each pillar is locked in vertical position of the pillar by a locking pin 10 in a locking device 12 provided in the lower defining surface 11 of the door opening so as in any case to prevent movement in the inward direction and to receive possible wind forces acting on the door sections.

Each pillar 7 is pivotal about an axle 13, which in the embodiment shown with hoistable door sections 1, is spaced from the lower surface of the beam 6 housing the hoist machinery a distance which at least corresponds to the height of the door sections 1 when they are fully hoisted and thus are in completely open position. The portion 7a of each pillar which is located above the axle 13 is rigidly connected to said beam 6 and acts as a receiving portion or store for respective door sections in their open position.Every axle 13 in the embodiment shown is located substantially horizontally in a plane perpendicular to the door opening and consists of two aligned axle pins 1 3a Said axle pins are carried by suspension plates 14, which are located on both sides of the upper fixed pillar portion 7a and connected thereto and extend each through a bearing sleeve 15 in carrying plates 16, which are attached on respective sides of the upper portion 7 a of the pivotal pillar 7, and of which one carrying plate is hingedly connected to the piston rod 17 of the piston-cylinder device 9 by a pin 18. Said pin is located spaced from the axle pin 1 3 a to form a torque arm for rendering it possible to fold up the pillar 7 by means of the piston cylinder device 9.This is pivotally suspended at one of the suspension plates 14 by means of a pin 19 and is shown equipped with a directly mounted pilot-controlled check valve 20 and connected to a hydraulic device 22, which is mounted on a shelf 21 projecting from the beam 6. Said hydraulic device includes a built-in electrically controlled adjust ing valve and a safety valve for preventing unintentional folding down of a folded-up pillar 7.

With the embodiment shown in the draw ings, the folding up of every pillar 7 takes place after the door sections 1, located on both sides thereof in the plane of the door opening, have been opened, so that the pillar in its folded-up position is located beneath and preferably against the lower cross-bar of one of the opened door sections 1 located on both sides of the pillar, and the lower folds 5 of the door sections are suspended on both sides of the pillar. Due to the location of the axle 13 in a plane in parallel with the door sections 1, however, it is also possible to fold up the pillar in a plane perpendicular to the door opening, either in outward or inward direction, depending on which side of the pillar the axle 13 is located.

When a folded-up pillar is being folded down to its vertical position for receiving the wind force, (in which position the guide bars 4a of the fixed pillar 7a constitute a direct continuation of the guide bars 4 carried by the pivotal pillar), in the shown embodiment of the locking device 12, the locking pin 10 of the pillar will be guided into a locking seat 23 formed in the locking device 12 by a guide slit 24 tapering toward the seat. The pillar 7, thus, inserted into said seat is locked by its locking pin 10 against movement in all directions except the direction of insertion, but the pillar can be locked also against movement in this direction by means of a movable split-pin 25, which is indicated only schematically by dashed lines in Fig. 5.

The locking pin 10, instead of being rigidly connected to the pillar may also be located movably at the lower end of its pillar in order after the folding down of the pillar to its vertical position to be inserted into the seat of the locking device, which seat may have the form of a sleeve, which widens slightly in upward direction.

The present invention is not restricted to what is described above and shown in the drawings, but can be modified, altered and completed in many different ways within the scope of the invention idea defined in the attached claims. The door sections 1, for example, need not have the form shown in Fig. 1, but may consist of some other per se known type of door without abandoning the invention idea. When each such door section consists of two halves, it is also possible that the door sections attached or pivotally suspended on both sides of a pillar follow along with the pillar when it is pivoted upward to expose the door opening. In this case and even with other embodiments of the door according to the present invention, the axle 13, about which the pillar can be pivoted upward, can be connected directly to the upper defining surface of the door opening.

When one of the door sections has a width smaller than the height of the door opening and, thus, smaller than the length of the folding-up pillar, the pillar can be designed foldable about a joint located between the ends of the pillar and on the side opposite to the shown axle 13.

Claims

1. A door for buildings requiring a large door opening, which door is divided into separate sections by vertical pillars arranged in the door opening, which pillars individually can be folded up from their vertical, windforce receiving position to a position exposing the door opening, and every section individually can be opened and closed.

2. A door as claimed in claim 1, wherein the door sections have different widths.

3. A door as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the door sections can be opened in upward direction.

4. A door as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein every pillar can be folded up by means of a piston-cylinder device, which is separate from the pillar and pivotally suspended and acts on the pillar at a distance from the axle, about which the pillar is pivoted.

5. A door as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein every pillar is provided at its lower end with a locking pin for co-operation with a locking device located in the lower defining surface of the door opening for fixing the pillar in its vertical wind-force receiving position.

6. A door as claimed in claim 5, wherein the locking pin is located projectable at the lower end of the pillar.

7. A door substantially as herein described with reference to and as shown in the accompanying drawings.