WO2009059673A1

WO2009059673A1 - Clamp for attachment to an elongate element for ceiling covering hanger

Info

Publication number: WO2009059673A1
Application number: PCT/EP2008/008513
Authority: WO
Inventors: Jérôme PAQUET
Original assignee: A.Raymond Et Cie
Priority date: 2007-11-08
Filing date: 2008-10-09
Publication date: 2009-05-14
Also published as: FR2923560B1; FR2923560A1

Abstract

The clamp (7) for attachment to an elongate element (8) comprises a first component (9) having two arms (11, 12), a first (11) of which, containing a first hole (14), forms a first blade (11), and a second component (10) shaped like an L with a forward part (18) containing a second hole forming a second blade (18) and a curved rear part (19) forming an elastic member. The second component (10) fits into the first component (9) so that the blades (11, 12) are superimposed and so that said holes (14) define a passage for said elongate element (8). Said second arm (12) of the first component (9) is provided with a third hole (15) for the elongate element (8) to pass through. The elastic member (19) is designed to exert, in a state of stress relaxation, a force on both blades (11, 18) bringing about a translational movement of one blade with respect to the other so as to clamp said elongate element (8) inside the passage by a shearing action of said holes (14).

Description

Elongated Element Clamp for Ceiling Hangers

A clamp for attachment to an elongate member such as a threaded rod or the like, comprising a first blade and a second blade superimposed on the first blade, said blades being respectively provided with a first port and a second orifice which define a passage for said elongated member through the two blades, and further comprising a resilient member which is adapted to exert, in a relaxed state of stress, a force on both blades causing translational movement of one blade relative to the other blade so as to block the movement of said elongate member in the passageway by shearing effect of said orifices.

The present invention more particularly relates to such a clamp which is used to suspend a ceiling covering, in particular for the interior renovation of buildings.

A ceiling or ceiling covering is generally in the form of plasterboard which can be maintained on the ceiling to be renovated by means of suspension rails, clamps and threaded rods. The threaded rods are first planted at regular intervals, for example in the ceiling to be renovated. The suspension rails are equipped with clamps also arranged at regular intervals. These rails are generally T-shaped, consisting of a holding area false ceiling plates parallel to the ceiling and a connecting head with the clamps. The rods are inserted by their free end into the clamps and the vertical level of each hooked point of a rod is adjusted in a clamp to obtain perfectly coplanar rails. After this adjustment, the plasterboard is slid into the holding area of the false ceiling plates and these are held by positioning and without any other mechanical element. For example, European Patent EP-2200443 discloses a clamp for attachment to an elongate member such as a rod or the like which is in one piece in the form of a folded and deformed strip. The peculiarity of this type of clamp is that it has a point of attachment to the rod which leaves it a slight freedom of angular movement. Such mobility of the rod may be necessary for example in the case of the installation of false ceiling plates assembled by screwing on furs. In this case, a certain mobility of the fixing of the rod on the clamp, which gives flexibility in the position of the furs, is necessary to obtain a good alignment of the furs and plates. However, in the case of suspended ceilings suspended on rails, this feature becomes a disadvantage since in this case, the false ceiling plates slid on the rails are maintained by positioning without fixing element and require a rigid and precise position of the rails.

The object of the invention is to propose another type of suspension clamp for a rail and for attachment to an elongated element such as a rod or the like, which is quickly and easily adjustable for use in laying false ceilings and which in addition provides a very good rigidity of fixing the clamp on the rod ensuring a precise position of the rail. For this purpose, the invention relates to a gripper as defined above, characterized in that:

said first blade is formed in a first profiled part comprising two branches separated from each other by a sole, said first branch constituting said first blade and said second leg being provided with a third orifice intended to be traversed by the first blade; elongated element, and

said second blade is formed in a second substantially L-shaped curved profile piece with a substantially rectilinear bend front portion which constitutes the second blade and a rear bend portion which runs along the sole of said first profiled piece when the front portion of elbow is inserted into said first profiled part, this rear part of elbow having on a length section a bending constituting the elastic member. According to a particular embodiment of the invention, the first profiled piece has a substantially U-shaped cross section. According to another particular embodiment of the invention, the first profiled piece has a substantially P-shaped cross section.

Said holes in the first profiled part may be one and / or the other each surrounded by a substantially cylindrical neck providing axial guidance of the elongate member without the possibility of pivoting when it is inserted into the clamp according to the invention. This neck can be for example a drum formed by stamping or trimming. Advantageously, said elbow portion of the second piece is intended to fit into the first piece through a slot formed in a fold of the first piece.

The first piece may also be provided with at least one stamped cutout forming a second slot into which said front bend part of the second piece is inserted.

This arrangement contributes to obtaining a ceiling suspension hanger easy to handle and preserving a very good rigidity of fixing the clamp on the rod without soliciting a significant stress of the spring of the clamp.

The clamp according to the invention can still have the following features:

said elbow rear portion of the second piece is fixed to the sole of said first piece; the second piece is made of a spring steel sheet;

- The second orifice in the second blade is formed by two intersecting holes of different diameters and spaced apart from each other by a center distance.

The invention also relates to a suspension for ceiling covering comprising an attachment clamp as defined above. Advantageously, the ceiling suspension hanger according to the invention comprises an attachment clamp in which said rear bend portion of the second piece has an end which forms two legs apart one by relative to each other with feet returning to each other to attach to a suspension rail.

The present invention will be better understood on reading the following description of an exemplary embodiment illustrated by the drawings. Figure 1 is a perspective view of a clamp according to the invention in a first embodiment placed on a false ceiling rail.

Figure 2 is a perspective view of the clamp of Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a perspective view of a clamp according to the invention in another embodiment. FIG. 4 is a sectional view along the axis IV-IV of FIG. 3 of the clamp of FIG.

In Figure 1, there is shown in part a suspension rail 1 which is used for the installation of a ceiling covering for building renovation mainly. The rail 1, which has a T-shaped cross section, has a core 2 and two lateral wings 4. The core 2 is swollen on its longitudinal edge 3 so as to form two shoulders 6, 5. This edge 3 constitutes a connecting head with a clamp 7 according to the invention. The lateral wings 4 of the T form a maintenance area of the ceiling covering as is known to those skilled in the art. The clamp 7 is traversed by an elongate member, a threaded rod 8 for example. This clamp 7 is formed of two distinct parts 9 and 10 which fit into one another, revealing a passage for the elongated element, this passage being created by a coincidence of two orifices respectively formed in the two parts as described below.

According to a first embodiment, the first part 9 is a profiled part with a substantially U-shaped cross section having two branches 11, 12 substantially parallel to each other, connected to one another at one of their ends being spaced apart from each other by a sole 13 substantially perpendicular to the branches 11, 12.

The first branch 11 is provided with a first orifice 14 substantially centered on its width and intended to be traversed by the rod 8.

The second branch 12 is provided with another orifice 15 also intended to receive the rod 8. The orifices 14 and 15 are substantially coaxial along an axis substantially parallel to the sole 13.

According to the invention, these orifices 14 and 15 may respectively be surrounded by a cylindrical guide collar 16, 17 of the rod 8, the inside diameter of which is slightly greater than the outside diameter of the rod 8. As can be seen in FIG. 1 , the neck 16 on the first leg 11 protrudes from the outside of the U while the neck 17 on the leg 12 protrudes from the inside of the U. In the configuration of the clamp shown in Figure 1, the neck 17 could extend towards the outside of the U.

This first part 9 is made for example by folding a sheet metal of thickness preferably between 0.2 mm and 3 mm. Collars 16,17 can be made by jogging, to obtain a short barrel (up to a height of 5 mm) or by stamping, to obtain a long shaft (height greater than 5 mm). In Figure 1, there is shown 16.17 short barrels obtained by soyage.

The second piece 10 of the gripper 7 is in the form of a substantially L-shaped bent flexible strip with a substantially rectilinear elbow front portion 18 and a bend rear portion having a bending section 19 on a length section. elastic member or spring. The end portion 20 of the rear bend portion is further shaped to provide an assembly with the rail 1. The straight forward bend portion 18 of the workpiece 10 has a smaller width than the bending 19 (which therefore goes into widening from the front to the rear of the workpiece) and defines lateral recesses 21 serving as a stop when the workpiece 10 is inserted into the workpiece 9 through a slot 22 which is formed at the fold 23 between the branch 11 and the sole 13.

In FIG. 2, the direction of insertion of the piece 10 into the slot 22 of the piece 9 is indicated by A. Furthermore, another slot 24 is represented on the branch 11 of the piece 9 by a spaced-out punched cutout 25 along the direction A of the slot 22 so as to carry out a translation guide along the direction A of the part 10 in the part 9.

The elbow front portion 18 of the piece 10 is provided with an orifice 26 intended to be in register with the orifice 14 of the piece 9 to form a passage for the rod 8. When the piece 10 is inserted into the slots 22 and 24 of the part 9, the front bend part 18 of the part 10 and the branch 11 of the part 9 form two parallel blades capable of moving in translation relative to each other under the effect of a restoring force exerted by the curved part of the part 10 on the part 9, causing shearing effect of the orifices 26 and 14 and thus blocking the translational movement of the rod 8 in these two orifices.

The piece 10 can be made of a spring steel sheet cut and deformed. The elasticity necessary for the proper operation of the bending 19 can be obtained in a known manner, for example by a heat treatment of the steel used for the part 10.

The two parts 9, 10 can therefore be produced by cutting, folding and deformation of an inexpensive sheet metal.

FIG. 2 shows the gripper 7 in another angle of view with respect to FIG. 1. In particular, the orifice 26 formed in the part 10 which appears substantially centered at the level of the front part of the elbow 18 which is tapered is seen more clearly. at its end.

The orifice 26 is advantageously formed by two intersecting holes 27, 28 and spaced apart from one another by a distance E in the axial direction A. These two holes 27 and 28 are aligned axially along the direction A in such a way to form a kind of oblong sliding slot for the rod 8. The first hole 27, here circular, is larger in diameter than the diameter of the rod 8. The second hole 28, here also circular, is of a diameter greater smaller than that of hole 27 and substantially identical to diameter of the rod 8 at the bottom of the threads so that, with an appropriate thickness of the piece 10, the second hole 28 closes on the half-periphery of the rod between two consecutive threads.

The spring effect of the bending 19 is reinforced by the fact that the rear bend portion of the piece 10 is fixed (downstream of the bending) to a fastening point 29 of the rivet type, point of welding, bonding or the like, of the sole 13 of part 9.

It can also be seen in FIG. 2 that the rear bend portion of the piece 10 has an end 20 forming two legs (in the form of blades) 30, 32 spaced apart from one another leaving a space 36 of which the shape is complementary to the sectional shape of the edge 3 of the rail 1.

The legs 30,32 include feet (also blades) respectively 34,35 reentrant that is to say facing each other. As shown in Figure 2, the two legs 30,32 are coplanar while the feet 34,35 extend in secant planes. It should be understood that these legs 30,32 and 34,35 feet are elastically deformable to make an assembly with the rail 1 snap.

When the piece 10 is inserted into the piece 9 and fixed thereto at point 29, the lateral recesses 21 abut against the outer surface of the sole 13 at the level of the fold 23 and the rectilinear part (downstream of the bending 19) of the rear bend part of the piece 10 is pressed against the sole 13 of the piece 9. To insert the rod 8 in the clamp, it exerts pressure on the bending 19 towards the sole 13 which has the effect of translational movement of the front part of elbow 18 (or first blade) of the part 10 relative to the branch 11 (or second blade) of the part 9 tending to make the hole 27 coincide axially the orifice 14. The rod 8 is inserted into this passage and is pressed into the orifice 15 (which may or may not open). The orings 16,17 serve to guide the rod in translation during its insertion into the clamp.

By releasing the stress exerted on the bending 19, the blades 18 and 11 move relative to each other and shear the rod 8. More particularly, the translational movement of the two blades tends to pass the axis of the hole 27 behind the axis of the orifice 14 so as to block the axial displacement of the rod 8 in a passageway formed by the hole 28 and the orifice 14, this by a shearing effect of peripheral edges of these holes. The rod 8 is also immobilized in the orifice 15 of the branch 12 so that it can not move in the clamp.

It is understood that the clamp according to the invention can be easily manipulated with one hand to achieve an adjustment of the level of the suspension rails relative to the ceiling. Alternatively, there is shown in Figure 3 another clip 107 according to the invention in a second embodiment. In this figure, as well as in FIGS. 4, 5 and 6, the same reference numerals correspond to the same elements as those bearing the same references. in Figures 2 and 3, and these elements fulfill respectively the same functions. For the sake of clarity and brevity, we will describe below only the elements of the clamp 107 which differ from the clamp 7 previously described. The first piece 109 is a profiled piece with a substantially P-shaped cross-section. This P-shape can be seen as a U-shaped plate 13 linked to a U turned 90 ° with two branches 11, 12 substantially parallel to each other. connected by a wall 113, substantially perpendicular to the branches 11,12. FIG. 4 shows the pliers 107 in section along the axis IV-IV of FIG. 3. According to the invention, the first orifice 14 can be surrounded by a cylindrical collar 16 for guiding the rod 8 projecting from the outer side of the first piece 109 (represented by a short barrel 16 obtained by soyage). The third orifice 15 is represented here as a through opening in the branch 12. Alternatively, this orifice 15 may also be surrounded by a second neck (not shown here) whose direction may be oriented towards the inside of the piece 109 , or outward.

This first piece 109 can be made as described above with reference to the piece 9 of the gripper 7. The second piece 110 of the gripper 107 is in the same way as the piece 10 of the gripper 7 and can be made as it.

In use of the clip 107, the piece 110 being inserted into the piece 109 and fixed thereto in the same manner as described above in reference to the clamp 7, it exerts pressure on the bending 19 in the direction of the sole 13 to insert the rod 8 in the clamp 107, which has the effect of translational movement of the front bend portion 18 of the workpiece 110 by relative to the branch 11 of the piece 109 tending to make the hole 27 and the orifice 14 in axial coincidence. To do this, the clamp 107 according to the invention can easily be handled with one hand as mentioned above. high with reference to the clamp 7 and the user can advantageously bear a finger on the wall 113 of the piece 109, his thumb pressing on the bending 19. The rod 8 is then inserted into this passage and pushed into the orifice 15 as described above with reference to the use of the clamp 7.

The present invention can not be limited to the foregoing description of its embodiments, which may undergo some modifications without departing from the scope of the invention. For example, insofar as the orifice 14 on the part 9 is surrounded by a sufficiently long neck, for example a drum formed by stamping, there is no need for the orifice 15 in the branch 12 of the part 9 to immobilize the rod 8 in the clamp. In this case the orifice 15 is fictitiously constituted by the opening of the barrel 16 which is spaced, along the axis of the rod 8, from the orifice 14 in the branch 11 of the part 9.

Claims

1 / clamp (7, 107) for attachment to an elongated element (8) such as a threaded rod or the like, comprising a first blade (11) and a second blade (18) superimposed on the first blade (11), said blades ( 11, 18) being respectively provided with a first orifice (14) and a second orifice (26) which define a passage for said elongated member (8) through the two blades (11, 18), and further comprising an elastic member (19) which is adapted to exert, in a relaxed state of stress, a force on the two blades (11, 18) causing a displacement in translation of a blade relative to the other blade so that blocking the displacement of said elongated member (8) in the passageway by shearing effect of said orifices, characterized in that:

said first blade (11) is formed in a first profiled part (9, 109) comprising two branches (11, 12) separated from one another by a sole (13), said first leg (11) constituting said first blade (11) and said second leg (12) being provided with a third orifice (15) to be traversed by the elongate member (8);

said second blade (18) is formed in a second substantially L-shaped curved profile piece (10, 110) with a front elbow portion

(18) substantially rectilinear which constitutes the second blade (18) and a rear bend portion which runs along the sole (13) of said first profiled piece (9, 109) when the front bend portion (18) is inserted into said first profiled piece (9, 109), this rear bend portion having on a length section a bending (19) constituting the elastic member.

2 / clamp according to claim 1, wherein the first profiled part (9) has a cross section substantially U-shaped.

3 / gripper according to claim 1, wherein the first profiled piece (109) has a cross section substantially P-shaped.

4 / clamp according to one of claims 1 to 3, wherein said first orifice (14) is surrounded by a neck (16).

5 / clamp according to one of claims 1 to 4, wherein said third port (15) is surrounded by a neck (17).

6 / gripper according to one of claims 4 or 5, wherein each neck (16,17) is a drum formed by stamping or trimming.

7 / gripper according to one of the preceding claims, wherein said elbow front portion (18) of the second piece (10, 110) is intended to be inserted into the first piece (9, 109) through a slot ( 22) formed in a fold (23) of the first piece (9, 109). 8 / gripper according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the first part comprises a stamped cutout (25) forming a second slot (24) in which said front portion of elbow (18) of the second part (10, 110).

9 / gripper according to one of the preceding claims, wherein said rear bend portion of the second piece (10, 110) is fixed to the sole (13) of said first piece (9, 109).

10 / clamp according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the second part (10, 110) is made of a sheet steel spring.

11 / clamp according to one of the preceding claims, wherein said second orifice (26) is formed by two holes (27,28) secants of different diameters and spaced apart from each other by a distance (E).

12 / Hanger for ceiling covering comprising a clamp according to one of claims 1 to 11.

13 / Hanger according to claim 12, wherein said rear bend portion of the second piece (10, 110) has an end which forms two legs (30,32) spaced relative to each other with feet ( 31, 33) returning to each other to attach to a suspension rail (1).