GB2199355A - Securing a bollard or road marker to the road - Google Patents

Abstract

A traffic bollard comprises a body having a magnetic base, so that the bollard may be temporarily secured, by magnetic attraction, to the iron socket or frame of a cats-eye device set in a roadway, or to a steel plate set in the roadway for that purpose. In a variant, a separate magnetic base is provided on its upper side with lugs or a socket to receive a conventional bollard. Similar arrangements may be provided for other items such as temporary road signs or traffic lights. The magnetic fixing has the advantage of securing the bollard or the like against blowing over, whilst avoiding the need for any fixing arrangement requiring tools or complex manipulation.

Description

DESCRIPTION OF INVENTION Improved bollard, marker element, sign or the like THIS INVENTION relates to an improved bollard, marker element, sign or the like and, more particularly, to an improved means of securing such an item in use.

It is common practice, whilst repairs are being carried out to roads and motorways, to direct and channel the flow of traffic past the site of repairs by means of temporarily placed bollards, marker cones or the like. Where marker cones are used, these are generally light-weight plastics items which merely rest upon the road by their bases, without being positively held in place, the bases of the cones being either weighted or more heavily constructed than the reminder.

Whilst marker elements of this type are readily set out and gathered up again, they have the disadvantage of being subject to blowing over in high winds or in the slip-stream of passing vehicles. As an alternative to such plastics marker cones, there may be used upstanding bollards, each having a base which is physically engaged in a socket afforded by a metallic holder incorporated in the road pavement, such holders being, for example, placed at intervals along lines which demarcate adjacent lanes on a motorway carriageway and being so configured as to be flush or nearly flush with the road surface when not in use. These holders may be afforded by catseye units incorporated in the road pavement or may be adapted, in normal use, to hold removable cats-eye units which may be removed to allow insertion of bollards when required.Whilst bollards located in those ways are not susceptible to being blown over, they are less convenient for setting out or gathering up, than the plastic cones referred to above because a predetermined mechanical insertion or removal operation must be followed for each bollard and the sockets of the holders, when not in use, tend to fill up with mud and sand, so that each socket must be cleared of such sediment before a bollard is inserted.

Furthermore, when bollards of the last-noted type as subjected to a horizontal force, for example by impact with a passing vehicle, they cannot simply tip over as can the weighed-base cones but are bent or snapped off close to the locations where they are received in the sockets of their holders, so that the bollards are destroyed. Not only does such destruction itself represent a loss, but substantial difficulty may be encountered in extracting from the holder socket the stub of the broken bollard before a new bollard can be inserted.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an approved bollard, marking element, sign or the like which can be held reliably in place on a road pavement or the like against displacement by wind or slip-stream forces but which can be readily tipped over and displaced laterally in response to horizontal forces due to, for example, being struck by passing vehicles without damage to the bollard, marker or the like and without disabling the means provided for holding the bollard, marker or the like on the road surface.

According to one aspect of the invention there is provided a bollard, marker, element, sign or the like, having a base incorporating a permanent magnet whereby the body base, and thus the bollard, may be termporarily secured to a ferromagnetic element fixed to or incorporated in a road pavement, floor covering or the like to be held by magnetic attraction.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a base adapted for releasable positive connection with a bollard, marker or the like and incorporating a permanent magnet whereby the base may be temporarily secured to a ferromagnetic element fixed to or incorporated in a road pavement or the like.

According to another aspect of the invention there is provided a method of fixing a bollard, marker element, sign or the like in relation to a road pavement, floor or the like, comprising providing, in the road pavement, floor or the like, at or adjacent to the surface thereof, at least one ferro-magnetic element, providing a bollard, marker element, sign or the like comprising a body having a magnetic bore, and fixing the bollard, marker element, sign or the like by engaging said magnetic base with said ferro-magnetic element so that the bollard, marker element, sign or the like is held in place by magnetic attraction.

According to a further aspect of the invention there is provided a combination of a road pavement, floor or the like incorporating, at or adjacent the surface thereof, at least one ferro-magnetic element, with at least one bollard, marker element, sign, or the like having a magnetic base held to the ferro-magnetic element by magnetic attraction.

An embodiment of the invention is described below, by way of example.

One embodiment of the invention takes the form of a bollard or temporary demarcation element adapted to be used, with identical elements, placed at intervals, to mark, for example, the boundary of a restricted carriageway in a region of a motorway where repairs are being carried out. The bollard comprises a body which may take any desired form, the body having a base incorporating a permanent magnet, the remainder of the body extending upwardly from the base. The permanent magnet is so mounted within the base that when the flat lower face of the bollard base is engaged with a ferromagnetic element such as the exposed upper rim of the iron or steel frame or socket, set permanently in the road carriageway, of a cats-eye, the base of the bollard will be fixed securely to said ferromagnetic element by magnetic attraction.The bollard may, of course, equally readily, without modification, be fixed by magnetic attraction to, for example, the exposed part of an iron or steel holder provided for a conventional plug-in bollard or to some other iron or steel plate or the like secured in the road surface. Thus, where there are no appropriately placed cats-eyes or cats-eye sockets or bollard sockets to receive the bollard base, a thin steel plate can readily be fixed to the road surface at a desired location and the bollard placed on that. Such a plate may be fixed, for example by means of a nail or stud driven into the road pavement by means of a pneumatic hammer. To facilitate subsequent removal, such a plate may have, at a peripheral location,a raised edge portion under which the end of an appropriately formed lever may be engaged in order to allow the plate to be levered upwards, withdrawing its nail or stud from the road.

In another embodiment, a bollard base is provided which incorporates a permanent magnet whereby the base may be held by its underside, by magnetic attraction, onto a ferromagnetic element incorporated in a road pavement, and which further incorporates, on its upper side, means for receiving and holding positively, a conventional bollard. Such means may comprise, for example, a pair of lugs engageable with the lower end of a conventional bollard, or a socket to receive the same.

Such a magnetic base may thus be used, with a conventional bollard, to afford the advantages of the invention while allowing existing bollards, for example stocked by a motorway maintenance unit, to continue to be utilised.

In either of the embodiments described, the exterior of the bollard, or of the bollard base, is preferably of tough plastics, the plastics layer over the pole face or faces of the permanent magnet or magnets incorporated in the bollard base being sufficiently thin to allow the gap between such pole face or faces and the ferromagnetic element to be small enough to permit the bollard base to be held strongly to the ferro-magnetic element incorporated in the road pavement by magnetic attraction.

It will be appreciated that, by appropriate selection and design of the permanent magnet or magnets in the bollard base, it can readily be insured that a relatively light-weight bollard or bollard base combination may be secured, by magnetic attraction, firmly to a ferro-magnetic element fixed in the road surface, so as to be virtually immovable by wind forces or slip-stream forces likely to be encountered in practice, but so as to be capable of being dislodged and tipped over by horizontal collison forces substantially less than would be required to damage a bollard or substantially damage the colliding vehicle.Further, such a dislodgement, because it causes damage neither to the bollard, bollard base nor to the mounting provided therefor in the road pavement, allows the bollard to be readily replaced by, for example, contractors personnel, simply by lowering the bollard, base down, on to the ferro-magnetic mounting element again.

It will be appreciated that a magnetic mounting system such as described may be utilized for other items, such as temporary low-profile cats-eye units, temporary road signs, temporary traffic light standards, or lighting supports.

Furthermore, the use of such a mounting system is not confined to roads and motorways, or even to exterior use, but such a system may be used, for example, in connection with signs, marker elements or temporary barrier systems in public access buildings, with appropriate steel plates being set at locations of probable need in the floor.

Claims (9)

CLAIMS:

1. A bollard marker element, sign or the like, comprising a body having a magnetic base whereby the body may be temporarily secured to a ferro-magnetic element fixed to or incorporated in a road pavement, floor covering or the like, to be held by magnetic attraction.

2. A bollard, marker element sign, or the like according to claim 1 in which said magnetic base of said body is adapted for engagement with the iron or steel container accommodating a cats-eye marker device in a road pavement.

3. A method of fixing bollard, marker element, sign or the like in relation to a road pavement, floor or the like, comprising providing, in the road pavement, floor or the like at or adjacent the surface thereof at least one ferro-magnetic element, providing a bollard, marker element,sign or the like comprising a body having a magnetic base, and fixing the bollard, marker element, sign or the like by engaging said magnetic base with said ferro-magnetic element so that the bollard, marker element, sign or the like is held in place by magnetic attraction.

4. A base adapted for releasable connection with a bollard, marker or the like, and incorporating a permanent magnet whereby the base may be temporarily secured to a ferromagnetic element fixed to or incorporated in a road pavement or the like.

5. The combination of a road pavement, floor or the like incorporating, at or adjacent the surface thereof, at least one ferro-magnetic element, with at least one bollard, marker element, sign, or the like having a magnetic base held to the ferro-magnetic element by magnetic attraction.

6. A bollard, marker element, sign or the like substantially as hereinbefore described.

7. A method of fixing a bollard, marker element, sign or the like with respect to a road pavement, floor covering or the like, substantially as hereinbefore described.

8. The combination of a road pavement, floor or the like with a bollard, marker element, sign or the like, substantially as hereinbefore described.

9. Any novel feature or combination of features disclosed herein.