Patent Application
20220364402
None.
The invention relates generally to hinges, and more specifically to locking door hinges.
Hinges permit ingress and egress into buildings and vehicles. In many situations it is desirable to secure a hinge and attached door open automatically, for example while unloading a vehicle. Therefore, what is needed is a hinge that permits both ingress and egress, and which automatically and releasably secures the door.
Many attempts have been made to provide a locking hinge. The first family of locking hinges are those which incorporate the locking means into the hinge pivot. An example of this type of hinge is U.S. Pat. No. 8,359,709 to Van Gennep. This style of hinge relies on the pivot itself to releasably secure the hinge and attached structures.
A second type of locking hinge utilizes a two-part solution to keep the hinge in the desired position. An example of this type of hinge is U.S. Pat. No. 8,584,318 to Tu, which discloses a hybrid mechanism wherein the pivot incorporates a notch which mates with a corresponding indentation on the barrel, the pivot notch and barrel indentation working in tandem to releasably secure the hinge in the desired position.
The above-mentioned attempts to solve the problem of automatically securing a hinge are unsatisfactory and introduce unnecessary complexity. What is needed, then, is a device that acts as similarly as possible to a normal hinge and releasably locks at a certain position.
The current invention solves this problem by utilizing the hinge barrel itself to secure the hinge in the desired position by incorporating at least one indentation and one protrusion fixed within the barrel wall. The indentation and protrusion are capable of engaging one another to automatically secure a hinge. This arrangement allows the user to employ generic hinge parts, except for the modified barrel, simplifying the overall design while providing higher reliability.
The preferred embodiment of the current invention utilizes an adjustable barrel-located means for releasably securing a hinge in the desired position. The barrels of the current invention are concentric and share the same inside diameter. The securing means for each barrel is located such that when the hinge is actuated to a second position, the first barrel securing means and the second barrel securing means releasably engage to secure the door in a second position. In the preferred embodiment, the barrel securing means take the form of an indentation and corresponding protrusion, both of which form part of the barrel.
In this embodiment, the user has opted to automatically secure the hinge assembly 100 once it reaches an angle of one-hundred-and-eighty degrees, but the current invention can be adapted to secure the hinge assembly 100 at nearly any angle along the circumference of the first portion barrel 106 or second portion barrel 108. Also, these embodiments show a protrusion 110 on a first portion 102 and an indentation 112 on a second portion 104. This arrangement is not required, but instead the indentation 112 and protrusion 110 may be mounted on any portion which permits them to engage.
The indentation 112 and protrusion 110 in the preferred embodiment are rectangular in shape, having a height of 4 millimeters and a width of 5 millimeters. The indentation 112 and protrusion 110 are not limited to a rectangular shape, and may comprise any shape or design which permits the barrel portions to releasably engage.
