This invention relates to an elevator car panel connection structure.
An elevator car uses car panels such as wall panels for defining an elevator car compartment. The connection between the car panels has heretofore been generally established by bending the connection edge portion of the panel to provide fastening portions, and fastening these fastening portions to each other by fasteners such as bolts or clips (see Patent Document 1, for example). It is also proposed, for connecting wall panels without using the fasteners, to provide connection portions of the panel with wedge configuration portions and to use their wedging effect to connect the wall panels (see Patent Document 2, for example).
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-77431
[Patent Document 2] Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-302149
However, when bolts are to be used, the connecting operation needs time, and the operation cannot be achieved from inside of the car compartment and fine assembly adjustment is necessary and difficult. Also, although the operation time can be significantly reduced when clips are used, the problem of a large number of parts still remains to be solved. Further, in the structure utilizing the wedging effect, the wall panels may easily come out of engagement when a force acts in the direction opposite to the engaging direction.
Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide an elevator car panel connecting structure in which the structure is simple, no special part is required and assembly is easy and precise.
With the above object in view, according to the present invention, the elevator car panel connection structure for connecting car panels constructing elevator car comprises;
a first channel-shaped bent portion disposed along a connection edge portion of a first car panel and having a channel-shaped cross-sectional configuration defining an opening and an inner space with a width larger than that of said opening; and
a second channel-shaped bent portion disposed along a connection edge portion of a second car panel and having a channel-shaped cross-sectional configuration defining a base portion width that is larger than the width of said opening of said first car panel and that is smaller than the width of said inner space of said first car panel;
whereby said second channel-shaped bent portion is pressure fitted into said inner space of said first channel-shaped bent portion through said opening so that said first channel-shaped bent portion and said second channel-shaped bent portion are elastically connected and held together.
The second channel-shaped bent portion is pressure fitted into the inner space of the first channel-shaped bent portion through the opening so that the first channel-shaped bent portion and the second channel-shaped bent portion are elastically connected and held together.
Thus, according to the present invention, an elevator car panel connecting structure can be provided in which the structure is simple, no special part is required and assembly is easy and precise.
These wall panels 2 to 7 as well as the doorway panels 8 and 9 can be assembled together by connecting the elevator car panel connecting structure of the present invention. Also, though not illustrated, the ceiling panels or the floor panels may similarly be assembled together by connecting through the elevator car panel connecting structure of the present invention. In this sense, these wall panels 2 to 7, the doorway panels 8 and 9, the ceiling panels and the floor panels are all same parts, so that these panels are hereinafter referred to as car panels in this application. These car panels are made of a sheet metal suitable for a panel, such as stainless steel, aluminum or the like.
In
Connected to the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 of the car panel 2 is an only bent edge portion 16 (corresponding to the first channel-shaped bent portion 13) provided on the only connection side edge 15 (corresponding to the first connection edge portion 11) of the doorway panel 8 defining the doorway 10. Another side edge 17 of the car panel 8 is not provided with a channel-shaped bent portion and defines the doorway 10. Also, connected to the first channel-shaped bent portion 13 of the car panel 7 is an only bent edge portion 19 (corresponding to the second channel-shaped bent portion 14) provided on the only connection side edge 18 (corresponding to the second connection edge portion 12) of the doorway panel 9. Another side edge 20 of the doorway panel 9 is not provided with a channel-shaped bent portion and defines the doorway 10.
Thus, the first channel-shaped bent portion 13 which is a channel member having a generally U-shaped cross-section connected to the car panel 2 by the connecting portion 21 has an inner space 26 defined by the first side wall 22, the second side wall 24 and the bottom wall 23 along the first connection edge portion 11, the inner space 26 has an opening 27 defined between the first side wall 22 and the second side wall 24 to de provided along the first connection edge portion 11 to communicate with the inner space 26. The opening 27 has a width A (the distance between the first side wall 22 and the second side wall 24 as measured at the entrance of the inner space 26) that is smaller than a width B (the distance between the side wall 22 and the second side wall 24 as measured at the position of the bottom wall 23 which is the bottom of the inner space 26) of the inner space 26. In order to make the width B larger than the width B, the second side wall 24 is bent so that the angle defined between the bottom wall 23 and the second side wall 24 (angle θ shown in
The second channel-shaped bent portion 14 disposed on the second connection edge portion 12 of the car panel 3 is a generally U-shaped channel-shaped member similar to the first channel-shaped bent portion 13. The second channel-shaped bent portion 14 comprises a connecting portion 28 extending toward outside of the car 1 at right angles from the connection edge portion 12, a first side wall 29 which is a continuous extension from the connecting portion 28, a bottom wall 30 bent at right angles in parallel to the main body of the car panel 3 from the tip of the first side wall 29, and a second side wall 31 which is a bent portion extending at substantially right angles from the tip of the bottom wall 30 toward the inside of the car 1 and in parallel to the first side wall 29. In the illustrated example, the angle defined between the bottom wall 30 and the second side wall 31 is the same as the angle between the bottom wall 23 and the second side wall 24 of the first channel-shaped bent portion 14 and is slightly smaller than the right angle (the angle θ shown in
The second channel-shaped bent portion 14 also comprises, as shown in
Since the first and the second channel-shaped bent portions 13 and 14 have the structure as described above, when the channel-shaped body portion of the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 is inserted into the opening 27 of the first channel-shaped bent portion 13 from the right in
Finally, the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 rests at the position at which it is held in the first channel-shaped bent portion 13 as shown in
As illustrated in
According to the elevator car panel connection structure of the present invention, the first and the second channel-shaped bent portions 13 and 14, which are continuously and integrally provided to the car panels 2 and 3, respectively, as one piece, elastically engages to each other like clips and hold each other, so that no securing fittings such as bolts and nuts are necessary and the connecting operations can be achieved from the inside of the car compartment, thus significantly reducing the number of the parts and significantly shorten the elevator car compartment assembly time.
As explained before in conjunction with
In
According to the elevator car panel connection structure of the present invention of the above construction, similar advantageous results as explained in conjunction with
Thus, as explained above and shown in
In this example, the body portion outer width C and the bent portion depth D are equal to the inner space width B, so that the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 can be fit into the inner space 26 of the first channel-shaped bent portion 13 even when its position is changed by 90 degrees. In this example, the second channel-shaped bent portion 14, though the bent portion between the first side wall 29 and the bottom wall 30 is at right angles, after the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 is passed beyond the opening 27 of the width A of the first channel-shaped bent portion 13, the bottom wall 30 of the second channel-shaped bent portion is flexed inwardly by the elasticity of the second side wall 24, whereby the friction between the respective components are maintained.
Thus, according to this example, completely identical car panels can be used both for the flat portion and the corner portion, eliminating the need for several types of the car panels to be used in selective and suitable combination. In this example also, advantageous results similar to those explained in connection with
In the elevator car panel connection structure shown in
According to this structure, in addition to the advantageous results that have heretofore been explained, an advantageous result that the connection is not easily disengaged because of the friction by the force acting in the parallel or perpendicular direction relative to the car panel 2 or 3. In particular, even when the passenger leans against the car panel 2 or 3 and a perpendicular force is applied to the panels, or a parallel force is applied to the car panels, the connections between the car panels are not disengaged, so that the safety of the car compartment 1 is increased.
In the elevator car panel connection structure illustrated in
However, the bottom wall 30 between the first and the second side walls 22 and 24 of the first channel-shaped bent portion 13 is made extremely narrow in width, the width B of the inner space is about three to four times larger than the thickness of the sheet metal of the car panel 2. The width A of the opening is about two to three times of the thickness of the sheet material of the car panel 2. The second channel-shaped bent portion 14 also has a bottom wall 34 of a still smaller width, the largest width B of the inner space being about the thickness of the sheet material of the car panel 2, for example, and the width A of the opening may be very small or substantially zero.
Thus, according to this example, the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 comprises the first side wall 22 extending along the connection edge portion and the second side wall 24 folded from the first side wall 22 to lay on the first side wall 22. The first and the second side walls are folded, so that the width of the inner space and the width of the opening defined therebetween are very narrow. The first channel-shaped bent portion 13 is made to fit to the configuration and the dimensions of the second channel-shaped bent portion 14, so that the width B of the opening and the width B of the inner space are made smaller as compared to those shown in
In
In this connection structure, there are two methods for connecting the first channel-shaped bent portion 13 and the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 together. In the first method, the end portion of the second channel-shaped bent portion 13 is axially slidingly inserted into one of the circular end portion openings at the both ends of the central axis of the first channel-shaped bent portion 14. When both ends of the first and the second channel-shaped bent portions 13 and 14 reach to a predetermined position, the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 is rotated about its axis within the circular first channel-shaped bent portion 13 from the position shown by phantom lines to the position shown by solid lines so that the connecting portions 21 and 28 come to contact with each other. In this position, the car panels 2 and 3 are positioned in the same plane and the front edge of the second side wall 43 of the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 abuts against the stopper 40.
In the second method, both ends of the first and the second channel-shaped bent portions 13 and 14 are placed in alignment and the connecting portion 28 of the second channel-shaped bent portion 14 is inserted into the opening 27 formed along the connection edge portion 12 as shown in phantom in
According to this elevator car panel connection structure, the car panel can be connected together by the sliding movement along the connection edge portion or the rotating movement. Therefore, differing from the structure utilizing the elasticity of the bent portion, there is no need to make engagement against the elastic force. Also, the front edge portion of the first side wall 39 of the first channel-shaped bent portion 13 is folded inwardly to provide the stopper 40, which abut against the front edge of the second side wall 43 of the second channel-shaped bent portion 14. Therefore, the advantageous results of preventing the disengagement of the connection structure can be obtained not only against the rotational movement of the second channel-shaped bent portion 13 but also against the parallel movement due to a force perpendicular to the axis of the connection structure.
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/JP2006/313755 | 7/11/2006 | WO | 00 | 2/12/2009 |