The present disclosure relates to sliding doors or swing and sliding doors of vehicles such as subway carriages, railroad carriages, lift cabins, cableway cabins and the like, and in particular to locking them in the closed position.
Doors of vehicles in which persons are transported must remain reliably in the closed position during travel. It is therefore not sufficient to close them by their drive, but it is rather necessary to provide locking devices for them. Such locking devices should of course automatically engage when the door closes and, in normal operation, be released by the drive at the beginning of the opening movement. It must also be possible for the locking devices to be unlocked by the users in emergency operation, for example in the event of the normal door drive failing, so that the doors can be opened manually as a result.
In the case of door drives in which the door leaf or door leaves is/are moved by a spindle mechanism, it has long been known not to arrange the spindle nut in a rotationally fixed manner at the works but to mount it to be rotatable at least within limits. It is also known to provide the spindle with a radially projecting finger which slides in a connecting link and thus provides the rotational locking, making it possible for the nut to act as a spindle nut. Such a drive is known, for example, from DE 28 19 424 A. In that position of the nut, which corresponds to the closed position of the door, the connecting link has a widened portion or a bend which allows the spindle nut to pivot by a predefined amount under the applied torque. Thus, even when the drive is deactivated, the spindle nut cannot move, as a result of banging on the door leaf, into that angular position in which it can be displaced along the predominant part of the connecting link. The door is locked in the closed position. For emergency actuation, elements are provided which act on the finger of the spindle nut and thus allow the nut to rotate into the position aligned with the deflecting connecting link. In the DE 2819424A document, further locking elements are provided which are activated by the nut moving into the end position formed.
Further locking arrangements of the above type are known in various embodiments from U.S. Pat. No. 5,341,598 A, from U.S. Pat. No. 6,446,389 B, from EP 903 275 A and from EP 452 201 A. In some of those documents, the spindle is designed such that the nut engages by a finger in a thread groove on the spindle, and such that the thread groove has a varying gradient. Others of those documents collectively disclose devices such as that mentioned above.
The above-mentioned locking devices have been substantially proven, but all have the disadvantage that problems can occur in unlocking the locking mechanism. Such problems can occur in the case of overcrowded vehicles, dirty guides, iced-up drives, or door guides and/or drives which have been adjusted to the edge of their tolerances or, as often occurs in rough operation, beyond their tolerances. As can be seen from at least one of the designs described above, the drive force or drive torque for displacing the door leaf is available for providing unlocking. That can, on various occasions, in conditions such as persons leaning against the door leaf as a result of overcrowding, etc., be insufficient to apply the torque required to rotate the finger.
The present disclosure, therefore, relates to a locking device which provides greater forces or torques for unlocking the locking mechanism than for a normal movement of the door leaf or door leaves.
According to the present disclosure, the door drive, which comprises the motor, a transmission and a drive spindle, is provided with a torque dividing arrangement which, when the spindle is fixed and the motor is activated, conducts a resulting reaction torque via a locking transmission to the locking device.
Since the door leaves cannot move further when they reach the closed end position of the doors, their connection to a spindle nut prevents any further rotation of the spindle. The result is that the reaction torque is transmitted to the locking mechanism by the torque dividing arrangement, according to the present disclosure. The locking transmission makes it possible to freely select the active torque, and therefore the active locking and unlocking force, within wide limits.
Torque dividing arrangements have long been known in transmission design, and reference is made here only to the planetary gear set. It is of course also possible to design the dividing arrangement differently. That is, it is possible, for example, to mount the motor itself so as to be rotatable or pivotable, so that the reaction torque causes the motor housing to pivot, and to derive the locking or unlocking action from the movement of the motor housing.
Other aspects of the present disclosure will become apparent from the following descriptions when considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.
An end position of door leaves 8, 8′ is illustrated in
For example, if motor 2 is activated in an opening direction, it is not possible to move the door leaf 8 by engagement between the locking element 12 and the locking finger 11. The result is that any rotation of the spindle 5 is prevented by fixed connection or connecting leaf 7 and the spindle nut 6. As a result, it is also not possible for an outer wheel of the drive transmission 3 to be set in rotation. A motor torque sets the planet gears 13 in rotation, such rotation being transmitted to the locking transmission 4. With a fixed transmission ratio of the locking transmission 4, the gearwheel 9 is set in rotation, and with it the locking shaft 10 and the locking finger 11. An identical operation applies to door leaf 8′.
Again, for example, as a result of the locking finger 11 pivoting out of locking element 12, the door leaf 8 is released, resulting in the drive transmission 3 being set in motion and with it the spindle 5, and the opening movement of the door begins. In order to limit the rotation of the locking shaft 10 to a practicable amount, stops are provided, and this may also ensure that full motor torque is available to provide drive after the unlocking process.
The present disclosure is not limited to twin-leaf doors. For single-leaf doors, the second locking element 12′ can be provided on the vehicle body or on a wall of the vehicle body.
During a closing process, the operations take place in the reverse order. When the door leaves 8, 8′ have reached the end position as shown, the spindle 5 can be rotated no further and the locking mechanism 1 is locked by a torque dividing arrangement in the drive transmission 3.
The locking device and the arrangement of the drive for twin-leaf doors in a region of a main closing edge has a functional advantage, and also an advantage that the important and relatively bulky components are provided at a point of the doorway or portal that is most accessible and where there is the greatest availability of space. This facilitates inspections, adjustments and repairs.
The embodiment of
It is not necessary for an engagement of the locking fingers 11 to be restricted by connecting link 14 to the closed end position. It is possible to detect the position of the door leaves 8, 8′ in another way and to prevent the engagement by the brake on the locking transmission 4 in all positions other than the closed end position. This is advantageous for swing and sliding doors in which a brake as noted above is already provided.
As briefly indicated above, it is not necessary for two planetary gear sets 3, 4 to be used in order to provide the torque dividing arrangements. However, transmissions 3, 4 are components that have robustness, compactness and large step-up or step-down transmission ratios which can be easily obtained within wide limits.
The locking device comprises a motor 113 which drives a sun gear 101 of a planetary gear set. The planetary gear set has an internal gear 104 which is rotationally fixedly connected to a gearwheel 105 having an outer toothing which itself meshes with a gearwheel 106 which in turn sets a spindle 107 in rotation. One nut 108 for each door leaf 109 is seated on the spindle 107 so as to be rotationally fixed. The nut 108 is displaced along the spindle or axle 107 as a result of the rotation of the spindle 107, and in this way driving its respective door leaf 109 and displacing the latter between an open position and a closed position. Door drives of this type are widely known and require no further explanation here.
Fixedly connected to the door leaves 109 are locking bolts 110 which, during the closing end movement of the door leaves 109, pass by relatively short prongs and come into contact with relatively long prongs of latches 103, and pivot the latches 103 into the closed position (see
As a result of the pivoting movement of the latches 103, as shown in
When the locking lever 102 reaches its end position, the door drive is thus blocked and cannot be opened by any opening force, no matter how large, acting on the door leaves 109. This is only possible by activating the motor 113 in the opening direction. Since the motor torque is not capable of moving the door leaves 109 or their locking bolts 110 out of the prongs of the latches 103, the planet gear, and therefore its part embodied as a locking lever 102, rotates in the direction of the arrow F′ in
The embodiment of
It is also possible to provide, instead of the locking bolts 110 on each door leaf 109, a contact track having a recess, on which contact track a roller, which is arranged on the end of the locking lever 102, runs until it passes into the recess and thus allows the locking lever and therefore the planet annulus to pivot.
In the last two possible embodiments, it is mechanically favorable and often requested by clients that the respective open/closed state is also maintained in the event of drive power being lost. This can be provided by a compression spring acting “from the outside” on the projecting part of the planet annulus. The compression spring comes to rest, in one of the two end positions, at the right, and in the other end position, at the left of the straight connecting line between its mounting point, which is fixed to the vehicle body, and the rotational axis of the planet annulus.
There are of course other possibilities; for example, a tension spring can engage on an end face of the planet annulus and run “inward”, or a spring can engage on another component of the drive.
Although the present disclosure has been described and illustrated in detail, it is to be clearly understood that this is done by way of illustration and example only and is not to be taken by way of limitation. The scope of the present disclosure is to be limited only by the terms of the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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A 0706/2004 | Apr 2004 | AT | national |
A 1573/2004 | Sep 2004 | AT | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
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PCT/EP05/04127 | 4/19/2005 | WO | 00 | 10/4/2007 |