GB951958A - Parking installation for motor vehicles - Google Patents

Abstract

951,958. Mechanical garages; garage lifts. A. T. DE SAINT-ANDRE. April 6, 1961 [April 6, 1960], No. 12456/61. Headings B8E and B8H. [Also in Division B7] Motor vehicles are transported from an entrance 5 of a multi-storey garage to parking bays 4 in an enclosure situated above or below the entrance level by a track 2 which is horizontally movable, as on rails 7, along a central passageway 12 between two rows of parking bays. The truck has a vertically movable platform 3 which in turn carries laterally extensible arms 17. In use the arms are extended to pick up a vehicle, the truck is then moved bodily with the arms retracted to bring the vehicle opposite a required parking bay and finally the platform is raised or lowered and the arms again extended to deposit the vehicle. In Figs. 1 and 2 the parking bays are all on one below-ground level and the truck runs on underground rails: in Fig. 15 (not shown) there are two above-ground parking storeys and the truck runs on rails at the entrance level. In both forms the platform is raised and lowered by winches 11, Fig. 2, and cables 10 which are trained each over a single fixed pulley 9 and connected to the platform either directly, as shown, or as in Fig. 3 (not shown) by way of a pair of further pulleys at the top and bottom of a vertically movable mast at each side of the platform. The arms 17, when extended, move in channels 18 in the floor below the vehicle at the entrance or parking bay and comprise outer channel members 21, Figs. 4 and 5, extensible with respect to intermediate channel members 20 themselves similarly extensible over rails 19 fixed to the platform 3. The extension is effected by the drive over pulleys 31 of two cables 26 which interconnect lugs 27 and 28 on the rail 19 with lugs 30, 29 respectively on a channel member 21, and by like driving of channel member 20 through cables 32. The outer channel member may have support wheels 42, Fig. 7, running on the base of the channel 18 in the floor below the vehicle, these wheels being carried by bell cranks 40 whose free ends replace the lugs 29, 30 of Fig. 5 and which are operated to raise the platform as it moves into position below the vehicle thereby lifting the latter from the floor. The extensible arms may (see Fig. 9) be made movable longitudinally of the truck 2 by being each mounted on supports 53 driven by the screws 58 to move inwardly in pairs so that their outer channel members 50 act as illustrated to lift the vehicle wheels. The extensible arms may be mounted on a turntable (see Division B7) rotatable about a vertical axis with respect to the platform. In such case, the turntable drive may incorporate devices (Figs. 13 and 14, not shown) in the form of linkages so arranged that between successive dead centre positions thereof the predetermined rotation (e.g. 90 degrees or 180 degrees) of the turntable takes place. These devices control the accurate setting of the relative orientation of the extensible arms in accordance with that of the entrance, exit and parking bays.