US20200398145A1

US20200398145A1 - Inclined structure of court floor for automatic supply in ball game

Info

Publication number: US20200398145A1
Application number: US17/014,982
Authority: US
Inventors: Byoung Koo CHO; Chang Suk HAN; Chang Hee CHUN; Bo Sub KIM; Yeon Uk JEONG
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2018-07-06
Filing date: 2020-09-08
Publication date: 2020-12-24
Also published as: US10806990B2; US20200009448A1

Abstract

According to an inclined structure of a court floor according to the present disclosure, the ball used for practice can be rolled down outwardly along the slope of the court, and then be collected in the collecting ditch and gathered in one place, so there is no need to collect scattered balls separately.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present disclosure relates to an inclined structure of a court floor having a new structure for easily collecting and automatically supplying balls used in practice.

2. Description of the Related Art

In recent years, an increasing number of people are enjoying ball games such as basketball, futsal, volleyball, tennis, and foot volleyball.
However, since the court of a stadium where such ball games take place is configured to form a horizontal plane, the balls used in the practice are scattered and spread out around the court when a player is practicing. There is a problem wherein the balls scattered during practice as such must be collected again, which is very inconvenient.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,989,245 discloses an inclined tennis practice court. However, as can be seen from FIG. 3, it actually has a fragmentary structure that is inclined to only one side, and thus it is suitable for only one player to practice. Furthermore, gutters are installed on only two sides, and thus balls cannot be automatically collected on the other two sides. A ball supply device is installed at the center, and thus paths for automatically supplying balls from the gutters are also complicated. Since it has a rough surface for the purpose of collecting tennis balls, the inclination angle of the gutters is 3 to 3.4%, which is excessively large, so that it cannot be used for actual games.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2017/0348582 discloses an inclined playground, in which case a collecting ditch is separated from the playground. Since it is necessary to build an inclined playground on the ground, the “ground” needs to be only inclined on a site, but it is cumbersome. Furthermore, it is impossible to build and supply a number of artificial, three-dimensional stadiums.
In addition, U.S. patent Nos. 20002/0082100 and 2015/0038247 disclose an inclined field or channel. This is provided for golf practice. When the fact that a golf course naturally includes an inclined field is taken into account, these patents have no special meaning beyond reproducing a part of the golf course.
Therefore, a new method for solving such a problem is required.
As a prior art related thereto, there is Granted Korean Patent Publication No. 10-0394902.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present disclosure is directed to providing an inclined structure for a court floor having a new structure for easily collecting and automatically supplying balls used in practice.
According to an aspect of the present disclosure, there is provided an inclined court for a ball game stadium on which a ball game is played, the court being configured such that the top surface thereof is inclined to the outside so that balls used in a game or practice roll toward the outside and are collected and supplied, the court including: a flat bottom surface; a support layer made of a concrete material, installed on the flat bottom surface, and configured such that it has the highest height across the center of the longitudinal direction of the court and decreases in height from the center to the outside to form a predetermined angle of inclination; a flooring installed on the support layer, and made of a wood, synthetic resin, or rubber material; a collecting ditch installed along an outer periphery including the four sides of the court, inclined to one side, and installed along each of the four sides; and a ball feeding means installed at the corner of the collecting ditch to supply balls, automatically collected due to the inclination of the collecting ditch, to players.
In the present invention, the bottom surface, the support layer, the flooring, and the collecting ditch are fabricated into a single module.
According to an inclined structure of a court floor structure for automatic supply in a ball game according to the present disclosure, the ball used for practice can be rolled down outwardly along the slope of the court, and then be collected in the collecting ditch and gathered in one place, so there is no need to collect scattered balls separately.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a plan view showing an inclined structure of a court floor according to the present disclosure,

FIG. 2 is a side sectional view showing an inclined structure of a court floor according to the present disclosure,

FIG. 3 is a plan view showing a mold for constructing a support layer of an inclined structure of a court floor according to the present disclosure,

FIG. 4 is a side sectional view of a mold for constructing a support layer of an inclined structure of a court floor according to the present disclosure,

FIGS. 5 to 10 are plan views showing a modified example of an inclined structure of a court floor according to the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE EMBODIMENTS

The present invention will now be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.
FIG. 1 and FIG. 2 illustrate a court structure of a ball game stadium according to the present invention, which is applied to a court A of a stadium having a length of 12 m and a width of 6 m.
According to this structure, the upper surface of the court A is inclined outwardly, and a collecting ditch 1 inclined to one side is formed on the outer circumference of court A so that the ball used for playing or practice rolls outwardly and is collected in the collecting ditch 1, and then gathered to one side along the slope of the collecting ditch 1.
At this time, as shown in FIG. 1, the court A is formed such that the entire court A is inclined in a front-rear direction about the central portion.
In describing in more detail, the court A forms a support layer 11 having an upper surface inclined in the front-rear direction on the bottom surface 10, the support layer 11 being prepared with various materials that do not affect sports games such as concrete, ocher and the like. A flooring 12 is configured by being laminated on the upper surface of the support layer 11.
The support layer 11 installed on the flat bottom surface 10 and made of a concrete material has the highest height across the center of the longitudinal direction of the court A, and decreases in height from the center to the outside to form a predetermined angle of inclination.
The support layer 11 is constructed to have an upper surface that is inclined at an exact angle via the following steps: providing a mold 13 so as to correspond to an outer circumferential portion of the court A, placing a plurality of support members 14 configured to form an upper surface having an inclined surface corresponding to an inclined surface of the support layer 11 into the mold 13 such that the plurality of support members 14 are spaced apart in an mutually lateral direction, laying concrete into the mold 13, evening out the upper surface of the concrete so as to be corresponding to the inclined surface of the support member 14 and then hardening, finishing the upper surface of the hardened concrete using a grinder or an abrader or the like.
In addition, the inclination of the support layer 11 is formed in a range of 0.1° to 3°, preferably 0.5° to 1.5°. As such, the inclination of the support layer 11 is set in the range of 0.1° to 3° to solve the problems that occur. When the inclination of the supporting layer 11 is 0.1° or less, it forms a plane state which makes it impossible to gather balls used in a sports game to a collecting ditch 1 and when the inclination of the supporting layer 11 is 3° or more, the inclination (slope) is so great that the sports games cannot be performed freely.
Referring to an example wherein the inclination is set from 0.5° to 1.5°, in the case of a wooden material having small frictional force set to 0.7°, balls that have air pumped in, for example, a soccer ball, volleyball, basketball and the like are gathered in a collecting ditch 1, but a tennis ball, baseball, or ping-pong ball and the like do not have the appropriate surface material or size and thus are hard to roll around.
In the case of a wooden, urethane, or PP(plastic) flooring having an inclination of 1.5°, with slight difference in time all balls of ball games are gathered in the collecting ditch 1.
Generally, starting from an inclination of 1.5° or more, it becomes uncomfortable to play the ball games, and once the inclination reaches around 3°, there is difficulty in playing the sports.
In a case of a grass stadium, even when set to 3°, the ball couldn't reach the collecting ditch.
Because such setting of inclination changes the stress fatigue of a player and the possibility of collecting a ball, it is important to set a preferable inclination.
As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the mold is configured by assembling a wooden panel in a quadrilateral frame shape.
The support member 14 is formed by welding a metal pipe having high strength.
In addition, when the upper surface of the concrete laid in the mold 13 is evened out, by pushing a wide bull floating tool having a lateral width that is bigger than the spacing of the support member 14 in a front-rear direction while placed on top of the upper surface of the support member 14 to widely spread the concrete, the upper surface of the concrete can form a plane having the same slope as that of the upper surface of the support member 14.
Since the bull floating tool is generally used when evening out the upper surface of concrete placed on a bottom surface, a detailed description thereof will be omitted.
A flooring 12 is made of wood, synthetic resin or rubber and is formed in a small panel shape so that a plurality of the same are adhered and fixed on the upper surface of the support layer 11 so as to cover the support layer 11, or is applied so as to have a constant thickness on the upper surface.
At this time, the type of the flooring 12 depends on the type of the stadium.
Further, the inclination angle of the court A is appropriately adjusted according to the type of ball and the type of the flooring 12.
In addition, the collecting ditch 1 is provided with a ball feeding means 2 for providing the ball collected by the collecting ditch 1 to the players, so that the ball collected in the collecting ditch 1 is automatically supplied to the players.
According to the inclined structure of the court floor configured as described above, the ball used for practice rolls outwardly along the slope of the court A, as indicated by an arrow in FIG. 1, and then is collected in the collecting ditch 1 and gathered in one place. Thus there is an advantage that there is no need to collect scattered balls separately.
That is, the ball goes through a two-step process of rolling along the surface of the inclined playground and rolling along the inclined collecting ditch.
Further, the court A comprises a support layer 11 made of a concrete material having an inclined upper surface on the bottom surface 10 and a flooring 12 configured by laminating wood, synthetic resin or rubber on the upper surface of the support layer 11. Thus, there is an advantage that the inclined surface of the court A can be freely adjusted.
Particularly, there is an advantage that the support layer 11 and the flooring 12 placed on top of the upper surface of the support layer 11 can be formed to be an exact plane surface via the following steps: providing a mold 13 so as to correspond to an outer circumferential portion of the court A, placing a plurality of support members 14 configured to form an upper surface having an inclined surface corresponding to an inclined surface of the support layer 11 into the mold 13 such that the plurality of support members 14 are spaced apart in an mutually lateral direction, laying concrete into the mold 13, evening out the upper surface of the concrete so as to be corresponding to the inclined surface of the support member 14 and then hardening, finishing the upper surface of the hardened concrete using a grinder or an abrader or the like.
In the present embodiment, the entirety of the court A is inclined in the front-rear direction with respect to the center portion. However, as shown in FIG. 5, only half of the court A may be inclined in the front-rear direction.
Further, as shown in FIG. 6, the entire upper surface may be inclined downward towards opposite sides, or only opposite sides of the upper surface may be inclined downward towards opposite sides as shown in FIG. 7. In addition, as shown in FIGS. 8 and 9, opposite sides and rear sides can be configured to be inclined downward towards the opposite sides and the rear sides, respectively. Further, as shown in FIG. 10, a court structure may be to have a uniform inclination in all directions about a center or may be formed of a plurality of inclined layers along circumferences of circles with radii increasing according to the distance from the center.
Alternatively, the court A may be formed in a dome shape inclined downward to an outer side from the center portion.
It is preferable that the portion where the inclination (slope) starts in the court A having the above-described configuration, that is, the portion where the corners meet (the portion indicated by a dotted line in the figures) is rounded and gently formed.
In the present invention, the bottom surface, the support layer, the flooring, and the collecting ditch may be fabricated into a single module by the method described above. This module can be completed in a factory or at a ground-side construction site and then built as a “court” on a playground. This means that there is no need to perform the work of inclining an existing playground or digging an inclined ditch.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. An inclined court for a ball game stadium on which a ball game is played, the court being configured such that a top surface thereof is inclined to an outside so that balls used in a game or practice roll toward the outside and are collected and supplied, the court comprising:

a flat bottom surface;

a support layer made of a concrete material, installed on the flat bottom surface, and configured such that it has a highest height across a center of a longitudinal direction of the court and decreases in height from the center to the outside to form a predetermined angle of inclination;

a flooring installed on the support layer, and made of a wood, synthetic resin, or rubber material;

a collecting ditch installed along an outer periphery including four sides of the court, inclined to one side, and installed along each of the four sides; and

a ball feeding means installed at a corner of the collecting ditch to supply balls, automatically collected due to the inclination of the collecting ditch, to players;

wherein the bottom surface, the support layer, the flooring, and the collecting ditch are fabricated into a single module.