Patent Application
20250084641
The present invention relates to a spacer carrier plate according to the preamble of claim 1, and to a method for inserting this spacer carrier plate in spacers.
Spacers are fastened to concrete reinforcements in order to maintain a defined distance between the reinforcement and the formwork walls, and thus to achieve a predetermined concrete layer thickness between the formwork wall and the reinforcement. Here, a multiplicity of spacer basic bodies and a multiplicity of fastening means of said spacer bodies to form reinforcing mats are known, wherein the materials of these structural elements may also vary.
In this connection, there are essentially two basic fastening methods for spacers in the prior art. On the one hand, the spacers are provided directly with fastening wires, which are inserted in the concrete before the latter cures and enable the spacers to be fastened to, for example, reinforcing mats.
The second variant involves more complex fastening elements, for example fastening clips, which are frequently made of plastic and are likewise inserted directly into the spacer body, which is not yet cured, during the production thereof. In both methods, the fastening means are already fully inserted into the spacers during production and therefore have already to be coordinated at this time with a pre-ferred fastening method for the respective field of application. Replacement of these fastening elements and thus a more flexible use of the spacer bodies for various applications are not provided here.
Documents DE 3 533 996 A1, U.S. Pat. No. 4,741,143 A and JP 2004 251 103 A in each case disclose spacers which have a groove, in which a reinforcing bar engages in a guiding manner, and furthermore fastening elements, which engage in horizontally running reinforcing bars. These fastening elements are fixedly embedded here in the material of the spacer, such as plastic or concrete, that is to say, the fastening means are necessarily already inserted integrally therein during the production of the spacers.
Against this background, it is the object of the present invention to provide a spacer carrier plate, which makes it possible for fastening means to be flexibly connected to the spacers via this spacer carrier plate only after the production of the spacers, and to provide a method for inserting this spacer carrier plate in spacers, the method permitting more efficient, faster and automatable production of the spacers comprising said carrier plate.
This is achieved by spacer carrier plates in accordance with the features of claim 1.
Dependent claims 2 to 12 relate to advantageous de-velopments of the invention.
The further dependent claims 13 to 15 relate to a method for inserting this spacer carrier plate in spacers.
The inventive concept makes provision here, during the production of the spacer from concrete, to insert this spacer carrier plate according to the invention into the concrete, which has not yet cured, in order to then be able to flexibly arrange fastening means on said carrier plate as required, with different technical approaches permitting greater freedom in the use of the spacers with a multiplicity of possible fastening means.
For this purpose, the spacer carrier plate according to the invention firstly has fastening members on the underside of the spacer carrier plate facing the spacer, said fastening members being suitable to be pressed into the spacer, for example, made of concrete and to be anchored here after curing of the concrete. These are, for example, mandrel-like fastening extensions which extend into the spacer approximately at right angles on the underside of the spacer carrier plate.
It is important that these fastening extensions are suitable for anchoring securely in the cured concrete, for example, which is why, as a rule, rather than a smooth rod, a fastening extension provided with at least one step or toothing or with a holding head is embedded in the concrete, for example.
Provision is also made according to the invention that this is either carried out with a central fastening extension or that a plurality of uniformly distributed fastening extensions facing the spacer are arranged over the underside of the spacer carrier plate and are fixedly connected to the spacer carrier plate. In an advantageous embodiment of the invention, these fastening extensions are an integral part of the spacer carrier plate used.
The spacer carrier plate thus fastened on the top side of the spacer now has a top side which faces the reinforcement and has receptacles or engagement points or engagement surfaces for the arrangement of releasably independent fastening means. An essential differentiation here from known solutions is that it is not the fastening means themselves which are permanently connected in this way to the spacer, but rather only the spacer carrier plate which, for its part, now provides engagement points or receptacles for fastening means.
Thus, an advantageous design of the invention is configured in such a way that at least two top-side eyelets are arranged on the top side of the spacer carrier plate. By means of these eyelets, fastening means can now engage on the carrier plate and can therefore fasten the spacer to the reinforcement via the carrier plate. For example, it would be advantageous here to guide fastening wires through said eyelets, with it being possible, depending on the application, for different wires of different materials and different strength to be used, because of the flexibility of the top-side eyelets. In this respect, the stated aim, namely greater flexibility in the use of the fastening means, is also already achieved here, since said fastening means do not necessarily have to be already predetermined for the spacer during its production.
A second advantageous design of the spacer carrier plate makes provision that open hooks for receiving fastening means and into which fastening means can be inserted are arranged on the carrier plate. Owing to the open design, in addition to the previously discussed fastening wires, other fastening elements are also connectable here, which fastening elements may be inserted, for example, through the open configu-ration of the at least two hooks into the latter.
These open hooks can be arranged and oriented here differently on the carrier plate. For example, a solution is provided in which a plurality of hooks, for example, four such open hooks, can be aligned with their openings toward the outer edges of the spacer carrier plate. This means that, for example, when using a fastening wire, this wire would not be able to slide out of said hooks, since although the wire is guided over the open hook ends, it can then be braced toward the center, for example, via a reinforcing bar. In this respect, a solution is achieved here that allows easy attachment of a fastening wire to this carrier plate.
Other alternative designs make provision, for example, for a plurality of tunnel-like guides to be arranged on the top side of the spacer carrier plate, into which guides, for example, free clamp ends can be inserted in an articulated manner. The top-side channels, which are aligned with one another, thus act as a receptacle and guide for fastening elements which can be arranged in an articulated manner, as well as for wires and similar fastening elements. Here, too, a significant increase in flexibility is achieved.
In addition to tunnel-like eyelets or hooks, an alternative design may also have slot-like connecting elements that can be used for connection, for example, to wires or ca-ble ties. Here, planar receiving regions are produced which, for example, in an advantageous design, can still have a toothing on the top side to serve for better supporting of the spacer against twisting on the reinforcing rod.
Another alternative option is the use of rail-type guides on the top side of the spacer carrier plate, into which guides, for example, fastening means made of sheet metal or spring steel sheet can be inserted. This also ensures that the spacer can be flexibly arranged on a very wide range of rod diameters.
The spacer carrier plate according to the invention also permits the use of electric binding machines. The spacer carrier plate can be produced, for example, by injection molding, wherein a multiplicity of spacer carrier plates can be produced in advance in an injection mold and thus only one operation is required. The individual clips can be connected to one another here by way of grids or groups.
The use of this form of spacer carrier plates in conjunction with an innovative form of spacer production, in which spacers are broken from a planar plate, is particularly advantageous. It is intended here to produce a large-area plate in advance, for example, from concrete and then to break it into individual spacers by means of appropriate splitting tools.
By arrangement of the spacer carrier plates as individual elements connected to one another in a grid, it is possible to produce this grid in accordance with the size of the spacers to be broken, and therefore the alignment in the grid is already precisely suitable. This allows the grid of the spacer carrier plates to be inserted completely and unsepa-rated onto the spacer plate produced by concrete casting. Only during the splitting of this entire plate with inserted spacer carrier bodies are the connecting grid structures of the spacer carrier bodies also severed and therefore a multiplicity of spacer bodies with an inserted spacer carrier plate thus remain, which then allow flexible use of a multiplicity of possible fastening means.
It is explicitly emphasized once again here that the innovative spacer carrier plate is not a spacer fastening plate. A fastening means is explicitly not part of said spacer carrier plate, since said spacer carrier plate is suitable only for receiving fastening means on the spacer body. There are no fastening elements as part of the spacer carrier plate that can be directly fastened to the reinforcements.
In this respect, a fastening means that is inserted into the spacer body, as is the case in the prior art, is explicitly not involved. In the case of inserts, which are already known in the prior art, in spacers, it would be possible to additionally provide said elements, which are provided with fastening means, with, for example, wire for reinforcing the fastening, for example, to further reinforce a plastics clip with wire. However, said fastening means which are inserted into the spacer, for example plastics clips, always have a fastening means which is already present. The innovative concept in the present design resides precisely in the fact that such a fastening means is not part of the spacer carrier plate, since the latter is intended only to have corresponding connecting regions, which should then be combined with fastening means to be arranged separately.
The spacer carrier plate can be made of plastic, for example by injection molding, or of metal or a combination of these materials, wherein, when manufactured from metal, it can be produced as a punched part and/or sheet metal bent part. In this way, the spacer carrier plate in both alternatives can be designed as a planar grid, as described above.
A discussed design according to the invention makes provision that the spacer carrier plates are releasably interconnected in a planar plate-like arrangement, wherein the connecting regions, between which the spacer carrier plates are formed in a selective or planar and manually or mechanically separable or breakable manner. Production of the spacer carrier plates in such a connecting frame or with connecting regions is already expedient here, but the connection can also be created, for example, selectively between the individual spacer carrier plates.
The result is an assembly of the spacer carrier plates that is stiffened in a plate-like manner and is also movable in this form, this affording significant advantages, especially in the process described later. The arrangement of the spacer carrier plates in relation to one another and thus the arrangement in the spacers can thus be standardized and precisely coordinated with the requirements of a casting mold and the positioning defined therein of the spacers. By means of, for example, guide elements on the casting mold, which interact with the planar plate-like arrangement of the spacer carrier plates, significantly higher accuracy of the positioning when inserting the spacer carrier plates both in their horizontal orientation and in their vertical recessing in the spacers, which are not yet cured, can be achieved.
The spacer carrier plates, which are interconnected in a planar manner, are arranged here in a uniformly grid-like arrangement with respect to one another and/or are arranged in a planar casting mold in a manner coordinated in position and spacings with the arrangement of the spacers to be fitted. Here, too, an adaptation to the casting mold or to the multiplicity of individual casting molds can be easily implemented.
The plate which is formed by this planar arrangement and connection of the spacer carrier plates and consists of spacer carrier plates can be designed to be insertable either loosely into the planar casting mold or into the multiplicity of individual casting molds or can have connecting means and/or bearing extensions and/or supporting extensions with which the plate is placed onto the planar casting mold or onto the multiplicity of individual casting molds and/or is inserted into receptacles on the planar casting mold. Connecting means, bearing extensions and/or supporting extensions on the planar arrangement and connection of the spacer carrier plates in this case, as previously described, improve the exact horizontal and vertical positioning of the spacer carrier plates in and on the spacers, which are not yet cured, and advanta-geously interact here with corresponding receptacles and coun-terparts on the casting mold or the casting molds which support this exact alignment.
The connecting means and/or bearing extensions and/or supporting extensions on the plate formed from the spacer carrier plates are expediently distributed over the surface of the plate at the periphery and/or on the underside. In an advantageous design, both arrangements are present, since a supplementary underside arrangement, for example, of supporting extensions has the effect that the spacer carrier plates, which are only connected by releasable connecting regions, sink deeper, for example in the middle region, depending on the size of the plate which is formed. This is pre-vented by supporting extensions which are distributed in a planar manner and are supported on the casting mold and thus ensure a defined distance of the plate from the casting mold over its entire area.
These improvements also permit an improved and also automatable method for inserting the spacer carrier plates into the spacers. In a first step, either a casting mold for a spacer breaking plate or a casting mold formed from a multiplicity of spacer casting molds or a multiplicity of individual casting molds for simultaneous production of a multiplicity of spacers is filled with a casting compound. This is a known method step, with a spacer breaking plate being under-stood as meaning the production of an individual casting plate, which is broken into individual spacers only after it has cured. The casting mold therefore does not consist of individual spacer molds, but can transfer separation lines and predetermined breaking points into the spacer breaking plate to support the final separation by a breaking process.
In a second step, the planar plate-like arrangement of releasably interconnected spacer carrier plates is inserted by the fastening extensions arranged on their first surface simultaneously into the casting mold or into a multiplicity of individual casting molds in a machine-automated manner or manually. In particular, automated insertion opens up new ways of automating spacer production. Reference should once again be made to the difference that the disclosed method does not insert the actual fastening means into the spacers but rather the spacer carrier plates according to the invention form the flexible engagement points for separate fastening means and constitute a type of fastening adapter.
In this case, at least in each case one spacer carrier plate of the planar plate-like arrangement is inserted into in each case one spacer before the curing of the casting compound forming the spacer. Depending on the design of the spacers produced, two or more spacer carrier plates may also be inserted into a spacer, for example in the case of an elon-gate rod-shaped design of a spacer.
In a final step, after curing of the spacers or the spacer breaking plate, the planar plate-like arrangement of releasably interconnected spacer carrier plates is separated and individual spacers fitted with spacer carrier plates are produced in a machine-automated manner or manually.
In the case of a casting mold for a spacer breaking plate, the final production of the individual spacers broken out of the plate is also carried out. This means that, in the final step, the individual spacers are broken out of the plate. In a particularly advantageous method, both the separation or breaking of the spacer breaking plate and the separation of the planar plate-like arrangement, inserted into the latter, of releasably interconnected spacer carrier plates is carried out in one operation.
It is also an advantage according to the method that, after curing of the spacers or of the spacer breaking plate in the casting mold or of the multiplicity of individual casting molds, the planar plate-like arrangement of releasably interconnected spacer carrier plates with cured spacers arranged thereon or the spacer breaking plate is removed from the casting mold or from the multiplicity of individual casting molds using removal engagement extensions on the planar plate-like arrangement of releasably interconnected spacer carrier plates or using the engagement receptacles and/or engagement surfaces, which are arranged on the second surface of the spacer carrier plates, for fastening means.
This means that the spacer carrier plates or the plate formed from them form fixedly anchored engagement points which deliver the further processing to individual spacers. This affords advantages, especially during removal from the casting mold or the casting molds, but also particularly in the case of automated further transport, since the assembly of spacers that have not yet been separated can be ideally moved by means of engagement at these engagement points, and therefore, in one operation, a multiplicity of spacers are removed from the casting mold or from the multiplicity of individual casting molds in an assembly, transported and supplied for the separation of the spacers.
Specifically, the manual or machine-automated movement of the planar plate-like arrangement of releasably interconnected spacer carrier plates in the process using the engagement receptacles and/or engagement surfaces, which are arranged on the second surface of the spacer carrier plates, for fastening means, is a relevant additional benefit since said components serving for the arrangement of fastening means of the finished spacers have a dual function. They improve the use of the end product, but also the method of producing said end product. Especially with a view to possible automation, the engagement receptacles and/or engagement surfaces for fastening means can also be optimized with regard to the access and engagement of, for example, robot arms and can thus cope with carrying out both tasks.
In the following, the invention of the device will be explained in more detail with reference to drawings. In the drawings:
On the underside it can be seen that, in this design, only one fastening extension 5 is provided for insertion into a concrete spacer, for example. That is to say, this element has a centrally arranged fastening extension 5, which, by way of a widened portion at its end, produces a step 6 running around it, which ensures a fixed seat in the cured concrete spacer.
In principle, all the designs together have a carrier plate 16, which has the fastening extensions 5 on its lower, first surface 17 and the engagement receptacles and/or engagement surfaces in a different design on its upper, second surface 4.
The first surface 17 thus faces the spacer and, in the installation situation, lies flat on the surface of the spacer 20 or is at least partially recessed therein. In the installation situation, the second surface 4 of the carrier plate 16 forms the free top side of the spacer and is therefore provided with engagement receptacles and/or engagement surfaces for the fastening means, for example wires, with which the spacer 20 can then be fixed to the reinforcement by means of the spacer carrier plate 1.
The choice of wire 23, whether eyelet wire or straight wire or black wire or VA wire, can thus be freely se-lected by the end user during installation. The length of the wire is also freely selectable for all shapes.
This spring steel clamp 22 can be pushed with the lower end into the two tunnels. A slightly snake-shaped bend secures the clamp when inserted in the gap between the two tunnels from slipping out. The spring steel clamp 11 can be adapted here on the construction site depending on the size of the rod diameter. It is therefore not necessary to supply an extra type of spacer for every situation.
Finally,
This clamp is intended to be fastened to the reinforcement in conjunction with a metal sheet or spring steel sheet. This sheet is intended to be pre-bent and the spacer can therefore be used on a very wide range of rod diameters. Furthermore, it is possible also to form this V-shaped fastening element from plastic.
In addition, this fastening means can be fastened with electric binding machines. There is the possibility of forming this V-shaped fastening means in such a way that the spacer with the clip can also be retrospectively fastened to the V-shaped fastening means.
This means that first the V-shaped fastening means 22 is fastened to the reinforcement and then the spacer is tightly clipped in place. Or first the V-shaped fastening means 22 is clipped into the clip and then tightly clipped onto the reinforcement.
In this design, a fastening via the spacer carrier plate 1 is shown by means of a guide rail 12. In this guide rail 12, there is a corresponding receiving notch 11, in which an approximately V-shaped fastening means 22 engages. The latter can be made of spring steel, for example.
In a lower horizontally running section, this V-shaped fastening means 22 engages in the notch 11 and thus secures the spacer 20 to a reinforcing rod 21, shown in cross section. The actual fastening takes place via a reinforcing rod 21 which runs transversely with respect thereto and to which the V-shaped fastening means 22 is fastened by means of fastening wires 23.
It becomes clear from this that a V-shaped fastening means 22 which is detached from the spacer 20 is present, said fastening means engaging on the spacer carrier plate 1, which is fixedly inserted into the spacer 20, wherein this is merely a V-shaped fastening means by way of example, since other fastening means are also suitable for being able to engage in the notch 11 on the spacer carrier plate 1. This illustrates the flexibility in the arrangement of the spacers 20, provided that they have the spacer carrier plate 1 according to the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 2021 104 302.3 | Aug 2021 | DE | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/DE2022/100572 | 8/8/2022 | WO |
