This disclosure relates to an enclosure formed from a composite construction. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a secure enclosure of the type used for jails, prisons, or containment cells and that is formed from composite construction techniques.
Over the last several decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has sharply increased. With this increase comes an increasing demand for prisons, jails, and similar containment facilities. Federal, state and local government agencies, as well as private entities, are faced with the task of building these secure facilities. In each case, building these secure facilities involves many often competing demands. One the one hand, the facilities must house inmates in a manner that prevents escape and that allows inmates to be compartmentalized within certain defined locations within the facility. On the other hand, these facilities must be scalable and capable of inexpensive and quick construction.
The background art contains several examples of construction techniques for secure facilities. U.S. Pat. No. 7,178,297 to Seavy discloses various steel structures made from interlocking steel modules. The wall modules are formed from plate steel and are assembled together using C-channel connectors. The interlocking tongue and grove construction allows for quick and cost-effective construction. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 8,833,002 to Lack, Jr. discloses a design and method for constructing and installing a cell front panel. The design allows for the construction and installation of cell fronts to occur at any time during the construction of the facility using only small hand tools and non-specialized workers.
Although the background art discloses various secure construction methods, all of the background art suffers from one or more drawbacks. For example, the background art fails to fully employ composite construction methods, and therefore, fails to allow facilities to be secure, quickly assembled, and cost effective. The secure compartmentalized enclosure of the present disclosure is designed to fulfill these and other shortcomings present within the art.
This disclosure relates to a secure enclosure that employs a composite construction.
The disclosed enclosure has several important advantages. For example, the enclosure can have some components manufactured from pre-fabricated concrete and other components manufactured from metal.
The present enclosure also benefits from interconnecting the concrete components and the metal components in a secure and tamper proof manner.
A further advantage is attained by allowing a metal divider or wall to be quickly and easily fitted into a pre-fabricated concrete structure, thereby greatly reducing manufacturing times and costs.
Yet another advantage is realized by allowing a metal divider to be secured to a pre-fabricated concrete structure via a secure and tamper proof connection.
Still yet another benefit is achieved by allowing a metal divider to be placed within an outer concrete shell, whereby the size and configuration of individual cells can be adjusted and modified during the manufacturing process.
Another benefit is realized by securing the metal divider in a fully encapsulated manner such that the edges of the divider are inaccessible.
The enclosure disclosed herein benefits from being quickly erected, cost effective, scalable, and secure.
It is another advantage to reduce manufacturing costs by reducing the need for specialized tooling.
Various embodiments of the invention may have none, some, or all of these advantages. Other technical advantages of the present invention will be readily apparent to one skilled in the art.
For a more complete understanding of the present disclosure and its advantages, reference is now made to the following descriptions, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:
Similar reference numerals refer to similar parts throughout the several views of the drawings.
The present invention relates to secure enclosures and to composite construction methods for assembling such enclosures. The described enclosures preferably utilize a prefabricated concrete structure that is mated to one or more metal panels. The metal panels include hollow ends that are connected to anchors formed within the walls of the prefabricated concrete structure. A further connection can be made between an upper edge of the metal panel and the ceiling. These connections join the metal panel to the concrete structure in a secure and tamper proof manner. The disclosed methods allow enclosures to be quickly constructed and easily configured to meet the needs of the particular facility. The enclosures are cost effective, scalable, and easy to assemble. The various details of the present disclosure, and a manner in which they interrelate, are described in greater detail hereinafter.
With reference to
Structure 20 is preferably formed without a floor to enable panel 36 to slid into structure 20 as depicted. The bottom of structure 20 can be anchored to a slab-on-grade foundation. In multistory structures (
The depicted precast concrete structure 20 is divided into two individual cells 40 by way of a centrally located metal panel 36. In the preferred embodiment, this metal panel 36 bisects the concrete enclosure 20 to create two equally sized cells 40. However, panel 36 can be configured and secured to create individual cells 40 of varying shapes and sizes. The use of multiple, smaller panels 36 is also within the scope of the present disclosure. Metal panel 36 can be fitted into the concrete structure 20 by sliding the panel 36 upwardly from the bottom of structure 20 as noted by the dotted arrows in
The metal panel 36 in the embodiment of
As noted in
As noted in
As a result of the channel 54 and angle iron 58, metal panel 36 is securely anchored between the near and far walls (22(a) and 22(b)) of concrete structure 20. Notably, divider 36 is secured and fully encapsulated in a way to prevent the ends of the divider 36 from being accessed or tampered with. In one embodiment, appropriate cut-outs may be provided at the top of panel 36 to permit it to be slide into place from the bottom of concrete structure 20 as noted in
Panel 36 is further secured in place by attaching the upper edge of panel 36 to the ceiling 64 of concrete structure 20. To accomplish this, and as noted in
Although this disclosure has been described in terms of certain embodiments and generally associated methods, alterations and permutations of these embodiments and methods will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the above description of example embodiments does not define or constrain this disclosure. Other changes, substitutions, and alterations are also possible without departing from the spirit and scope of this disclosure.
This application claims priority to Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 63/028,152, filed on May 21, 2020, entitled “Composite Construction for Secure Compartmentalized Enclosure,” the contents of which is fully incorporated herein for all purposes.
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2488582 | Sep 2012 | GB |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20210363746 A1 | Nov 2021 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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63028152 | May 2020 | US |