Patent Application
20210252683
This section is intended to provide background information to facilitate a better understanding of various technologies described herein. As the section's title implies, this is a discussion of related art. That such art is related in no way implies that it is prior art. The related art may or may not be prior art. It should therefore be understood that the statements in this section are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
There are two types of concrete construction that require some form of formwork: vertical formwork and shoring. Vertical formwork provides the ability to form structures that hold vertical loads. Shoring provides the ability to form structures that hold horizontal loads. Vertical structures like walls, columns and foundations require formwork, and horizontal structures like slabs, beams and girders require shoring to cast them into place as an elevated structural component. Examples where shoring provides horizontal concrete members include: slabs, horizontal concrete girders, cross-t's under highways, etc.
In some older systems, it may be necessary to stabilize the formwork using a tie-rod within a PVC sleeve. After pouring concrete, the tie rod is removed and the PVC sleeve remains in the formwork. The tie-rod may be held in the formwork with a she-bolt and a stop washer. However, due to different formwork requirements, it is not always possible to use one type of tie-rod, she-bolt or stop washer.
An implementation of a tool may include an input shaft having a hardness and an output shaft having the hardness. The input shaft and the output shaft may be connected to each other and may define an internal tube along a longitudinal axis of the tool.
An implementation of a fastening system may include a tool and a cylindrical insert. The cylindrical insert may include an input shaft having a hardness and an output shaft having the hardness. The input shaft and the output shaft may be connected to each other and may define an internal tube along a longitudinal axis of the tool. The cylindrical insert may define a receiving tube, which may be configured to receive the output shaft.
A method of fastening formwork panels may include inserting an insert into a frame, inserting a rod into the insert, encircling a tool around the rod at a first end region of the insert, and rotating the tool and the insert together.
The above referenced summary section is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that are further described below in the detailed description section. Additional concepts and various other implementations are also described in the detailed description. The summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to be used to limit the scope of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended to limit the number of inventions described herein. Furthermore, the claimed subject matter is not limited to implementations that solve any or all disadvantages noted in any part of this disclosure.
Implementations of various techniques will hereafter be described with reference to the accompanying drawings. It should be understood, however, that the accompanying drawings illustrate only the various implementations described herein and are not meant to limit the scope of various techniques described herein.
In formwork systems, tie-rods and she-bolts are used to couple two panels of the formwork together. The tie-rod is inserted through a through-hole in a first panel and a coaxial through-hole in a second panel. She-bolts may be attached to the ends of the tie-rods. The she-bolts may help to set the proper depth of the tie-rod. The formwork is held in place by placing a washer and nut on opposing she-bolts.
A PVC sleeve may be placed in the formwork and the tie-rod may be inserted into the sleeve. The sleeve may be positioned in the formwork so that it extends from almost one panel of the formwork to almost an opposing panel. The sleeve would thus leave a gap between panels. Guide cones would connect the sleeve to the exterior of the formwork. The sleeve would prevent the tie-rod from getting irremovably embedded in concrete. The sleeve would remain in the concrete and the guide cones and the tie-rod would be removable. After removal of the tie-rod, a cap, plug or cement would be inserted into the recess left by the guide cones and smoothed over to form a surface that is flush with concrete previously poured into the formwork.
An implementation is illustrated in
A further implementation is illustrated as assembly 108. The assembly 108 may include a tie rod 112c, through-tie sleeve 120, tie-plate nut 114c and at least one insert 122. Tie rod 112c may be inserted into through-holes 124a and 124b of panels 102a and 102b, respectively. The tie rod 112c may be threaded and may engage the tie-plate nut 114c, which may also be threaded.
With reference to
The insert 122 may be any one of a plug insert 204, a through-tie insert 206 or a multi-use insert 208. A distal end of the inserts 204, 206 and 208 may engage a recess 210 at a proximal end region 212 of the sleeve 202. Each of the sleeve 202, the plug insert 204, the through-tie insert 206 and the multi-use insert 208 may be cylindrical.
As disclosed above, the sleeve 202 engages a panel 102a or 102b by being inserted into the through-hole 118a. The sleeve 202 is inserted into the through-hole 118a via a rear side (not shown) of one of the panels, panel 102a, for example, and retained in the through-hole 118a by detent 304. The detent 304 is elongate and attached at one end 310 to the sleeve 202. The detent 304 has a sloped surface 312. The detent 304 is spring-like via its connection at the one end 310 to the sleeve 202.
Inserting the sleeve 202 into the through-hole 118a engages the sloped surface 312 with a surface of the panel defining the through-hole 118a. This engagement pushes the detent 304 into the sleeve recess 210 until the sleeve 202 is pushed far enough into the through-hole 118a so that the detent 304 passes the rear surface of the panel 102a and the proximal end region 212 of the sleeve 202 reaches the rear surface of the panel and the lip 302 engages the rear surface of the panel. Thus, the sleeve 202 is retained in the panel 102a by the detent 304.
An implementation of the plug insert 204 is illustrated in
The plug recess 408 may be multi-faceted. For example, a cross-section of the plug recess 408 may be hexagonal, rectangular, or triangular. The plug recess 408 may be configured to receive a tool for imparting torque on the plug insert 204. The tool for imparting torque will be discussed in detail below. The threads 402 of the plug insert 204 may engage threads 308 of the sleeve 202.
A flat surface 414 of the plug insert 202 helps to create a smooth surface for concrete poured into the formwork. For example, some formwork includes through-holes that are not occupied by an assembly 104, 106 or 108. The gap insert may be used to occupy the through-holes that are not occupied by an assembly. Upon inserting the plug insert 202 into a sleeve 202 within, for example, through-hole 118b, the flat surface 414 would be flush with an interior surface of the formwork, thereby leaving a substantially flat surface in the resulting concrete wall, panel, etc.
An implementation of the through-tie insert 206 is illustrated in
The through-tie recess 508 may be multi-faceted. For example, a cross-section of the through-tie recess 508 may be hexagonal, rectangular, or triangular. The through-tie recess 508 may be configured to receive a tool for imparting torque on the through-tie insert 206. The tool for imparting torque will be discussed in detail below. The threads 502 of the through-tie insert 206 may engage threads 308 of the sleeve 202.
The through-tie insert 206 may engage the tie rod 112c (shown in
The through-tie recess 508 may have two widths. A first width 518 of the through-tie recess 508 at the distal end region 516 may be narrower than a second width 520 and may have a size substantially similar to a size of the tie rod 112c. Thus, the distal end region of the through-tie recess 508 may fit tightly with the tie rod 112c.
The tie rod 112c may have a width that is smaller than the second width 520 of the through-tie recess 508 such that a gap is between the tie rod 112c and the cylindrical housing 506.
The through-tie insert 206 may help to set a depth of the tie-rod 112c. For example, the rim 510 engages the distal end region 306 of the sleeve 202. Engagement of the rim 510 with the distal end region 306 may prevent the tie rod 112c from being too deep in the panel 102a.
The tie-plate nut 114c (shown in
An implementation of the multi-use insert 208 is illustrated in
The multi-use insert 208 may be multi-faceted. For example, a cross-section of the multi-use recess 608 may be hexagonal, rectangular, or triangular. The multi-use recess 608 may be configured to receive a tool for imparting torque on the multi-use insert 208. The tool for imparting torque will be discussed in detail below. The threads 602 of the multi-use insert 208 may engage threads 308 of the sleeve 202.
The multi-use recess 608 may include a distal through-hole 614 at an end of the multi-use insert 208 that is opposite the rim 610, a first width 618 at a distal end region 616 and a second width 620 at the proximal end region 612. The first width 618 may be smaller than the second width 620. The multi-use insert 208 may engage a plurality of ties, including a tie rod, a taper tie, a corner bracket tie rod, a she-bolt, etc. The multi-use recess 608 may engage any of the tie rod, taper tie, corner bracket tie rod, she-bolt, etc. at the distal end region 616 and fit tightly within the first width 618.
The tie rod, anchor, corner bracket tie rod, she-bolt, etc. may have a width that is smaller than the second width 620 of the multi-use recess 608 such that a gap is between the tie rod, taper tie, corner bracket tie rod, she-bolt, etc. and the cylindrical housing 606.
The multi-use insert 208 may be used with a tie rod, however, it is unnecessary. For example, as illustrated in
The tool 802 may be monolithic and may be made of the same material as the insert 122. An external surface of the output shaft 806 may be hexagonal, rectangular, or triangular to engage a recess of the insert 122 (i.e., a recess of any of the inserts 204, 206 or 208). A size of the output shaft 806 may be substantially consistent with a size of the gap between, for example, a tie-rod and the through-tie insert 206 so that the output shaft 806 fits in the gap. The tool 802 may engage the insert 122 with or without a tie-rod or other component present in the insert 122 and properly impart torque thereon.
With further reference to the implementation illustrated in
A method of fastening a structure may include inserting the sleeve 202 into a frame, inserting the (secondary) insert 122 into the sleeve 202, and optionally inserting a rod into the insert 122. The tool 802 may encircle a first end of the rod, if present, and engage a recess of the insert 122 by which torque is imparted from the tool 802 to the insert 122. The insert 122 is thereby screwed into the sleeve 202. The tool 802 may be removed from the first end of the rod and used on a further (secondary) insert at a second end of the rod in the same fashion as the just installed insert 122.
In combination with the robust nature of the materials of the integrated construction system and the method of assembly, the cost to own the present integrated construction system is vastly reduced for both a dead asset basis, as well as the physical maintenance cost required to maintain a formwork and access inventory. In addition, the integrated construction system provides an increased flexibility to handle field applications, as well as increase the efficiency for the contractors that will use the integrated construction system to build concrete structures.
The discussion above is directed to certain specific implementations. It is to be understood that the discussion above is only for the purpose of enabling a person with ordinary skill in the art to make and use any subject matter defined now or later by the patent “claims” found in any issued patent herein.
It is specifically intended that the claimed invention not be limited to the implementations and illustrations contained herein, but include modified forms of those implementations including portions of the implementations and combinations of elements of different implementations as come within the scope of the following claims. It should be appreciated that in the development of any such actual implementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerous implementation-specific decisions may be made to achieve the developers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related and business related constraints, which may vary from one implementation to another. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a development effort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be a routine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those of ordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure. Nothing in this application is considered critical or essential to the claimed invention unless explicitly indicated as being “critical” or “essential.”
In the above detailed description, numerous specific details were set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present disclosure. However, it will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art that the present disclosure may be practiced without these specific details. In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components, circuits and networks have not been described in detail so as not to unnecessarily obscure aspects of the embodiments.
It will also be understood that, although the terms first, second, etc. may be used herein to describe various elements, these elements should not be limited by these terms. These terms are only used to distinguish one element from another. For example, a first object or step could be termed a second object or step, and, similarly, a second object or step could be termed a first object or step, without departing from the scope of the invention. The first object or step, and the second object or step, are both objects or steps, respectively, but they are not to be considered the same object or step.
The terminology used in the description of the present disclosure herein is for the purpose of describing particular implementations only and is not intended to be limiting of the present disclosure. As used in the description of the present disclosure and the appended claims, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” are intended to include the plural forms as well, unless the context clearly indicates otherwise. It will also be understood that the term “and/or” as used herein refers to and encompasses any and all possible combinations of one or more of the associated listed items. It will be further understood that the terms “includes,” “including,” “comprises” and/or “comprising,” when used in this specification, specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps, operations, elements, and/or components, but do not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, operations, elements, components and/or groups thereof.
As used herein, the term “if” may be construed to mean “when” or “upon” or “in response to determining” or “in response to detecting,” depending on the context. Similarly, the phrase “if it is determined” or “if [a stated condition or event] is detected” may be construed to mean “upon determining” or “in response to determining” or “upon detecting [the stated condition or event]” or “in response to detecting [the stated condition or event],” depending on the context. As used herein, the terms “up” and “down”; “upper” and “lower”; “upwardly” and downwardly”; “below” and “above”; and other similar terms indicating relative positions above or below a given point or element may be used in connection with some implementations of various technologies described herein.
While the foregoing is directed to implementations of various techniques described herein, other and further implementations may be devised without departing from the basic scope thereof, which may be determined by the claims that follow. Although the subject matter has been described in language specific to structural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understood that the subject matter defined in the appended claims is not necessarily limited to the specific features or acts described above. Rather, the specific features and acts described above are disclosed as example forms of implementing the claims.
