The present invention relates to diving masks as well as to a method for the manufacture thereof.
A diving mask comprises usually a face-piece having, formed therein, one or more openings for housing one or more lenses, a frame for fixing the lenses inside the face-piece and a strap for connecting the mask to the diver's head.
When manufacturing face-pieces for diving masks it has always been necessary to achieve a compromise between various requirements which often tend to conflict with each other.
So for instance, in a diving mask it is requested:
While initially in this technical sector the most common material used for manufacture of the face-piece of the mask was without doubt natural rubber, nowadays the elastomers which are most widely used are silicones, fluorosilicones, fluoro hydrocarbon rubbers such as Viton™, neoprene, acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber and ethylene-propylene rubber. Of these, the elastomers which are most versatile in terms of their rigidity range are silicones, which may have a hardness of between 5 and 90 degrees Shore A (ISO 868). In addition to this, silicones have notable properties as regards chemical inertia and tolerance by the user, which make them even more suitable for this type of processing operation.
It remains a problem, however, that, despite notable progress achieved in relation to the materials during recent decades, the rigidity of the elastomer material used is today still the result of a compromise between the two opposing sets of requirements mentioned above.
From the prior art, and for instance from US-A1-2004/143889; U.S. Pat. No. 4,087,865; U.S. Pat. No. 6,253,387 B1 and US-A1-2005/120468 swim goggles are known obtained by the combination of two different compositions of materials having different hardness. However, in the swim goggles: (1) the portion covering the nose of the diver is missing, and therefore all problems mentioned before sub (c) are missing; and (2) since the swim goggles are formed by two distinct and disjoint eye pieces which are applied on the ocular orbits, also the problem of the peripheral seal mentioned sub (a) is missing.
The object of the present invention is therefore to provide a mask, the face-piece of which is able to satisfy fully both the needs of a structural nature and those relating to sealing capacity and comfort.
The present invention therefore relates to a diving mask comprising a face-piece having, formed therein, one or more openings for housing one or more lenses, means for fixing the lenses inside the face-piece and means for connecting the mask to the diver's head; said face-piece is formed by at least two portions, which are stably connected together, said two portions being respectively made using two materials which are different at least from the point of view of the rigidity, one of the two materials being more rigid than the other one.
Said materials are elastomer materials such as for example silicones, fluorosilicones, fluoro hydrocarbon rubbers, neoprene, acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber and ethylene-propylene rubber and, of these, silicones are preferred, in particular liquid silicone rubbers (LSR) having a hardness of between 10 and 70 degrees Shore A.
In one embodiment, the portions of the face-piece of the mask intended to come into direct contact with the diver's face are made with a softer material, while the other materials are made of more rigid material. The softer material will be an elastomer material with a hardness of between 10 and 40 Shore A, while the more rigid material will have a hardness of between 40 and 70 Shore A.
The materials chosen for the different portions may preferably belong to the same class of compounds so as to improve their chemical bonding capacity during assembly of the face-piece; alternatively, the various portions of the face-piece will be made so as to ensure an adequate mechanical union between them.
The present invention furthermore relates to a method for the manufacture of face-pieces for diving masks, comprising the formation of the face-piece as at least two portions, said portions being made using at least two different materials, preferably elastomers, having a varying rigidity. The face-mask may be made by means of injection-moulding and the different portions may be made by means of successive overmoulding of the softer portions onto the more rigid portions; alternatively, moulding may be performed by means of twin injection, forming the more rigid portions and the softer portions substantially at the same time.
By this method it is also possible to colour in different manners the two elastomeric compositions, in order to provide an individualising aspect to the thus obtained mask.
Further advantages and characteristic features of the mask according to the present invention will become clear from the following detailed description of some embodiments thereof, provided, by way of a non-limiting example, with reference to the plates of accompanying drawings in which:
In
The operating principle of the mask according to the present invention and the method for manufacture thereof will become clear from the description below. With reference to the Figures of the accompanying drawings, the face-piece of the diving mask according to the present invention comprises in general portions made of more rigid material and portions made of softer material; the latter are preferably situated in the zones where there is a greater need for a good sealing capacity, such as the temporal outer edge of the portion 501 in
The face-piece of the mask according to the present invention may be manufactured using different methods; preferably it will be made by means of injection-moulding of the portions of more rigid material and the portions of softer material in immediately successive steps. Advantageously, the face-piece of the mask is obtained by means of twin injection-moulding performed using the so-called “rotating table” method. The zones forming the interface between the various portions made using the various material may be designed so as to favour bonding from a mechanical point of view, such as for example the series of reliefs 511 and recesses 521 shown in
The elastomer materials used to manufacture the face-piece of the mask may be those which are more typically used for these purposes and in particular are chosen from among the materials which have a hardness ranging between 10 and 70 degrees Shore A. In particular, elastomers with a hardness ranging between 40 and 70 Shore A will be used for the portions of relatively more rigid material, while elastomers with hardness values of between 10 and 40 Shore A will be used for the portions of relatively softer material.
The preferred materials are silicones, fluorosilicones, fluoro hydrocarbon rubbers, neoprene, acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber and ethylene-propylene rubber and, of these, silicones and in particular liquid silicone rubbers (LSR) are preferred. The more rigid material and the softer material may be chosen on the basis of their respective mechanical properties and it is also preferable that there is a high degree of chemical compatibility between the more rigid material and the softer material so that joining together of the two materials occurs in an extremely effective manner.
Advantageously, the two materials will belong to the same class of compounds, and in particular both the more rigid material and the softer material are silicones, and preferably they are both liquid silicone rubbers.
The mask thus designed offers considerable improvements from the point of view of both comfort and sealing capacity, and the manufacture thereof, considering the optimum results achieved, does not appear to be particularly complex and intricate.
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