The present invention pertains to a door leaf element, especially for a sliding wall system, where the door leaf element can slide along a guide rail and simultaneously swivel around an axis of rotation.
Door leaf elements of the type in question are known from multi-leaf entry doors, from the sliding wall elements used as room dividers, and from the wall elements used in the front of buildings, especially restaurants and shops, to keep the commercial area either freely accessible or closed off, depending on the weather. The individual leaf elements can be parked at the side, so that the entering public will not encounter any obstacles. In this case the wall elements are frequently arranged parallel to each other, each in its own offset rail, along which the element can be pushed, or they are connected to hinges, so that they can be collapsed in accordion fashion. It is also known that a door can be provided within these sliding wall elements. So that this door does not remain open in the cold seasons after the front wall has been assembled, these doors are also equipped with door closers. The door closer is set into the floor and is connected to the door leaf above by an axis, which projects up from the floor. This connection is usually achieved by means of a projecting axis outlet of the door closer. This is a source of danger after the wall has been brought into its parking position, however, because then the connector is left projecting above the floor. Nor do the known door leaf elements make it possible for the door to be installed at any desired position in the overall wall system, because its position is always determined by the location of the door closer installed in the floor.
A horizontal sliding wall which consists of several sliding wall elements and in which a frame door closer is installed within an additional profiled section of one of the elements is described in EP 0 601 326 B1. The frame door closer in this case has a drive axle pointing toward the floor, through which a continuous bore passes at a right angle to the wall. A connecting pin, which is attached to the hardware fittings of the door, is premounted on the door leaf and engages in this bore. An advantage over the previously cited conventional door closer in the floor is that there is no need for any complicated alignment procedures in the floor area for the cement box of the door closer. Nevertheless, a frame door closer of this type requires a wide profiled section in addition to the standard sections; such a wide additional section cannot be incorporated into all sliding wall designs, however, because an element of this type with a frame door closer takes up a very large amount of space, which is not available, for example, at the entrance to a railway station.
There is also a hand-actuated locking device in the floor area, which must be latched, and a previously closed locking device in the upper area of the frame door closer must be mechanically opened. These operations are very cumbersome.
A sliding and swiveling door, which . . . of two sliding leaves to which swiveling side parts are connected is described in German Registered Design No. 94 21 374. Door closers, which are concealed inside the upper transverse sections, are installed inside the swiveling side parts.
It is therefore the task of the present invention to provide a sliding and swiveling door leaf element, which can be produced easily and at low cost and which allows the door leaf element to swivel in any desired position.
The task is accomplished by a door leaf element with the features of one of claims 1-3. The subclaims present advantageous elaborations of the invention.
The door leaf element according to the invention is designed so that it can slide along guide rails and can be swiveled at any desired position around a first and a second swivel axis. For this purpose, at least one lever arm is provided in the door leaf element, and the door leaf element is guided by guide elements in a floor rail at the bottom and in a ceiling rail at the top. As a result of this arrangement according to the invention, the door leaf element swivels both around the lever arm and also around the guide elements, which travel along the guide rails as the door leaf element continues to swivel. According to the invention, the main closing edge of the door leaf element thus traces an elliptical path. Because the door leaf element is guided at both the top and bottom, it is well supported as it swivels.
According to another, preferred embodiment of the present invention, a sliding and swiveling door leaf element has a door closer, which is integrated into the door leaf element. In other words, the door closer slides and/or swivels in common with the door leaf element. Thus the door leaf element can be moved to any desired position, and no matter where it is, it can always be closed by the door closer.
According to another preferred embodiment of the present invention, the sliding and swiveling door leaf element has both an integral door closer and also at least one lever arm. As a result, the door leaf element according to the invention can be pushed to any desired position and used as a door with its own door closer to support the closing movement. The lever arm supports the opening and closing movement of the door.
According to an especially preferred embodiment of the present invention, the lever arm is connected to the door closer.
To improve the stability of the swiveling movement of the door leaf element even more, the door leaf element preferably has two lever arms, one at the top of the door leaf and one at the bottom. It is also possible, however, for the door leaf element to have only one lever arm, either at the top or at the bottom.
To provide an especially compact design, the lever arm or arms of the door leaf element are preferably installed in a cutout area in one of the profiled sections of the door leaf.
It is especially preferred for the door leaf element according to the invention to have a profiled attachment section and, immediately adjacent thereto, a profiled leaf section, the door closer being installed in the leaf section.
It is especially preferred for the door closer to be concealed. Thus the attachment section and the leaf section are arranged parallel to each other, either at the top or at the bottom of the door leaf element.
It is also preferred to provide at least one swivel bearing for the door leaf element on an adjacent door leaf element of the sliding wall system. This other swivel bearing is preferably provided in the attachment section.
It is especially preferred to provide a slide rail in the attachment section. A traveling carriage is preferably installed in the slide rail. The carriage is preferably connected to the leaf of the door leaf element by means of a swinging mount. It should be noted that, in this inventive embodiment of the door leaf element, both the door leaf and the attachment section and the leaf section which is directly connected to the leaf is comprised. The door leaf element according to the invention and the adjacent door leaf elements belonging to the sliding wall system are preferably guided in the same rails. As a result, the construction effort can be reduced, because only one rail is required in the ceiling and one in the floor; in addition, the highest aesthetic requirements are also fulfilled.
So that the door leaf element can be actuated and especially swiveled reliably, an arresting device is preferably provided. As a result, the door leaf element according to the invention can be locked in position at any desired point along the guide rails. This guarantees the reliable actuation of the door. For example, when the sliding wall system is used in front of a shop, only half of the wall system can be opened, and the sliding and swiveling door leaf element can be set up at any desired point.
So that no more than the minimum necessary load is exerted during actuation, that is, during sliding, and also so that no more than the minimum necessary load is exerted during the swiveling of the door leaf, the guide elements which guide the door leaf in the rails are located approximately in the middle of the width of the door leaf. Thus the point at which the door leaf swivels is also in the middle of the leaf.
The design of the door leaf according to the invention is used especially for glass doors.
As a result of the integration of the door closer into the door leaf element, the inventive door leaf can also be completely preassembled at the factory, so that only a minor amount of installation work is required at the installation site. More specifically, the only work required to install the door leaf element according to the invention is to insert it into the upper and lower guide rails at the installation site.
An exemplary embodiment of the present invention is described below with reference to the figures:
In the following, an exemplary embodiment of a door leaf element 2 according to the invention is described with reference to
As can be seen in
As can also be seen in
The swinging mount 10 can also be seen in
The bottom actuating arm 13 is shown in greater detail in
The overall design of the door leaf element according to the invention is shown again in
Thus, according to the invention, a sliding and swiveling door leaf 2 is provided, which can be used to particular advantage in a sliding wall system. Thus it is possible to move the sliding and swiveling door leaf 2 to any desired position, where it can then be swiveled and used as a door. As a result, many different concrete possibilities are obtained, especially for sliding wall systems intended for shops with front areas. As a result of the double guidance at top and bottom, glass in particular can be used as a construction material for the door leaf element 2, even though these types of doors are very heavy. In spite of their great weight, such doors can be actuated easily because of the use of the levers 12 and 13. In addition, the inventive door leaf element 2 also makes it possible to eliminate connecting elements projecting from the floor as they do in the case of the previously known sliding wall systems.
The preceding description of the exemplary embodiment serves only to illustrate the invention, not to limit it in any way. The invention can be modified and varied in many ways without exceeding the scope of the invention.
List of Reference Numbers
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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101578059 | Nov 2001 | DE | national |
Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
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PCT/EP02/13273 | 11/26/2002 | WO |