This Application is a Section 371 National Stage Application of International Application No. PCT/GB2011/001316, filed Sep. 7, 2011, which is incorporated by reference in its entirety and published as WO 2012/032295 on Mar. 15, 2012, not in English.
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The present disclosure relates to an automatic door bottom drop-down seal. More especially, the disclosure relates to a sealing mechanism that imparts a downward force on the seal and which is resistant to upward pressure during use.
Automatic door bottom seals are known. A very successful automatic door bottom drop-down seal is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,125,584.
One disadvantage of the seal mechanism described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,125,584 is that downward pressure is not exerted and maintained on the seal during use to push and hold the seal against the floor. Rather, the H-shaped housing is lowered via bending of flat leaf springs which have little resistance to upward pressure.
In use the H-shaped housing drops down to rest against the floor to form a seal which may be fairly efficient in terms of a draft barrier but has little or no acoustic properties. Moreover, when a number of seal sections extend across an uneven floor, gaps between the floor and the bottom of the seal will inevitably form at various points along the length of the door.
US 2009/0077895 discloses a drop-down seal with a handle which is turned to hold the seal housing down against the floor. The use of a handle is, however, cumbersome and is undesirable to the user who generally would not wish to bend down and turn a handle located at the bottom of a drop every time the door is shut.
According to one aspect of an exemplary embodiment of the invention, there is provided a drop-down seal for a hinged door which is pivotable over a door threshold when closed, the door bottom comprising:
Preferably channel is formed within an elongated inverted U-shaped housing.
Embodiments of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying figures in which:
The main elements of a drop-down seal are shown in the prior art (and particularly that identified in the aforementioned description).
The foregoing description will only discuss the improvements to such systems.
The housing 22 is formed as an inverted U-shaped section and defines a longitudinal channel 24.
A first slide block 26 is located at one end of the housing 10. The block 26 is connected to an actuator button 28 which activates when the door closes, to slide the block 26 along the channel 24.
A C-shaped bracket 30 is secured to the underside of the slide block 26.
Each arm of the bracket 30 has an aperture located at the front section of the bracket 30 to receive a pin 32 so to extend across the two arms.
An arm 34 is connected to the bracket 30 and has an aperture through which the pin 32 passes, through such that the arm 34 is pivotable about the pin 32 with the pivot centre point being forward of the leading vertical edge of the block 26. The other end of the arm 34 is secured in the same or a similar manner to a sealing element 36.
The sealing element 36 comprises an elongated blade 38 carrying a rubber seal 40.
The sealing element 36 may be of any alternate shape. In an alternative embodiment the blade 38 is not be present.
Depression of the actuator button 28, which is initiated on closure of the door, causes the arm 34 to pivot downwardly in respect of the bracket 30 which in turn imparts downward movement on the sealing element 36 (as can be seen in
In the embodiment shown in
Referring now to
Horizontal movement of the slide block 26 imparts downward pressure on the blade 38 due to pivoting movement the arm 34. As the slide block 26 slides along the channel 24 the sides of the bracket 30 connecting the pins 32 form and act as bushes to pivot the arm 34 downwardly to an almost vertical position.
As the sealing element 36 remains fixed in relation to the longitudinal axis of the housing 22, pivoting of the arm 34 to a substantially vertical orientation causes a direct downward pressure to be exerted on the sealing element 36 causing it to be downwardly displaced from the housing 10 thereby pushing the sealing element (comprising the aluminium blade 38 and the rubber seal 40) against the floor to provide a strong acoustic seal across the entire sealing element 36.
The arm 34 is sized slightly less than the internal dimension of the channel 24 within the housing 22. Preferably the length of the arm is calculated to be equivalent to the third, i.e. the longest side, of a pythagorean triangle, where both the height and length dimensions are of equal length.
Each slide block 26 within the channel 24 has an associated arm and connecting rigid rod 46. The rods 46 can be daisy chained throughout the entire length of the seal mechanism.
It is common have four block elements within a drop-down seal mechanism. The sliding mechanism is adjustable such that the vertical travel distance of the sealing 36 element can be adjusted.
The first and third blocks 26A, 26B are slidable along the channel, and have pivotable arms 34 as detailed, and are connected together via rods (not shown) such that movement of the first block 26A will, in turn, impart movement onto the third block 26B.
The other two blocks 48 are fixed in position. Flat leaf spring members 50 which are fixedly attached to the first and third blocks 26A, 26B, for example, extend between each pair of the blocks 26. The fixed blocks 48 cause flat leaf spring members 50 to bend downwardly but will not impart downward movement on the sealing member 38. The flat leaf spring members 50 have a dimpled central section to enable them to be flexibly attached to the sealing mechanism 38.
The downward movement of the arm 34 controls the flat leaf spring members 50 to create a downward force greater than the flat leaf spring members 50 would normally offer and then to retain the force to keep the sealing element 36 in position. The flat leaf spring members 50 assists in returning the mechanism to rest when the door is opened.
In an alternative embodiment (not shown), the first and third blocks are still slidable and second and fourth blocks remain fixed within the channel.
In this embodiment, further rod(s) extend from the first block to and beyond the fourth block. One end of the rod is secured to first block by mechanical means. The rod passes through central longitudinal holes or channels formed in the second, third and fourth blocks. Coiled springs are provided between each adjacent block. The rod is also threaded through each spring.
Under pressure the springs in the rod mechanism between the first and second blocks and the third and fourth blocks are compressed and bend horizontally reserving the force to enable the bottom blade with the seal rubber to rise back up. When the motion stops due to the button being fully depressed, the blade exerts a downward pressure on the floor/threshold surface and compresses the rubber seal against the surface forming a seal. When the button is released i.e. the door is opened the springs retract, everything returns back to the horizontal position followed by the arm(s). The blade fully retracts ready for use again.
The slide block 26 of the embodiments described above is replaced by a polypropylene arm comprising having two sections 52, 54 separated by flexible Thermo Plastic Elastamer (TPE) joints 56, 58. The arm could be made from other synthetic plastic material.
The arm assembly can be injection moulded as a single piece assembly. The TPE joint connections allow the arms sections to bend while being extremely robust, making them very difficult to tear or rip. The arm assembly provides greater flexibility allowing the downward pressure of the sealing element 36 to compensate for uneven floors up to 6 mm to 7 mm. If compression of one arm section is halted, the other arm section can still be compressed to allow that arm to reach its desire depth. The flexible TPE joints allow the arm assembly to compress and stretch to allow for uneven floor conditions.
The upper section of a synthetic plastic material arm assembly is formed as an inverted U-shaped section.
The upper part of this extruded moulded arm assembly replaces the slide block 26 and has a pivot centre point in front of the leading edge of an H-shaped bracket.
The assembly has a robust moulded joint continuous with the synthetic material block located at the front section of the assembly to allow the arm section to bend downwards.
The lower end of the arm (arm 26 above) is secured in the same or a similar manner to a horizontal block section which is secured to the sealing element 36 by a screw mechanism with the sealing element 36 in the closed position.
The overall performance of the automatic drop down door bottom seal system is enhanced by the above device as follows:
An exemplary embodiment of the present invention seeks to provide an improvement to the aforementioned automatic door bottom drop-down seal by providing a mechanism to impart a continual downward pressure on the seal housing during use to retain the seal firmly against the floor in use.
It will be appreciated that the foregoing are merely an examples of embodiments and just some examples of their use. The skilled reader will readily understand that modifications can be made thereto without departing from the true scope of the inventions.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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1014833.6 | Sep 2010 | GB | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/GB2011/001316 | 9/7/2011 | WO | 00 | 5/14/2013 |
Publishing Document | Publishing Date | Country | Kind |
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WO2012/032295 | 3/15/2012 | WO | A |
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Entry |
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International Search Report dated Dec. 16, 2011 for corresponding International Application No. PCT/GB2011/001316, filed Sep. 7, 2011. |
Written Opinion dated Dec. 16, 2011 for corresponding International Application No. PCT/GB2011/001316, filed Sep. 7, 2011. |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20130219792 A1 | Aug 2013 | US |