The present invention relates to gaskets for effecting watertight sealing of doors and other closures, more particularly to methods and devices for installing such gaskets in such closures.
The United States Navy's surface ship fleet includes about about eighty thousand watertight closures such as doors, hatches, and scuttles. A common feature of shipboard watertight closures is an elastic (e.g., elastomeric) sealing body known as a “gasket.” The most prevalent watertight closure gasket in the U.S. Navy's fleet is an embodiment of the “Fluidtight Door Gasket” disclosed by Marline D. Rowe and Francis A. McMullin at U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,871, issue date 10 Sep. 1996, incorporated herein by reference. The gasket disclosed by Rowe and McMullin is typically embodied as being characterized along its length by two forty-five degree chamfers and a medial semicircular groove therebetween.
The Rowe-McMullin gasket and the vast majority of other gaskets are described herein as having a “generally rectangular” cross-section. The term “generally rectangular,” as used herein to describe the cross-sectional shape of a gasket or of a gasket channel, is intended herein to convey a rectangular form that is either a perfect rectangle or a quasi-rectangle, the latter being a rectangular form that departs from perfect geometric rectangularity in certain geometric respects. Historically speaking, most watertight closure gaskets, and most watertight closure channels to which they correspond, have been characterized by a three-dimensional shape that “generally” defines a rectangular prism or a rectangular parallelepiped. “Generally” conveys that a gasket or a gasket channel may be characterized by certain design geometric deviations from a pure rectangular prismatic geometry or pure rectangular parallelepiped geometry.
The Rowe-McMullin gasket embodiment in current Navy use, illustrated in
Generally speaking, the lower the durometer, the more pliable the material, and hence the easier it is for personnel to manipulate a gasket while installing it into a closure gasket channel. Nevertheless, installation of even a relatively pliable gasket requires strong hands and strong fingers to work the gasket into the entire channel perimeter; for instance, approximately seventeen linear feet of gasket is required for a typical watertight door onboard a Navy ship.
Personnel installing a gasket tend to longitudinally stretch (lengthen) the gasket, largely inadvertently, before and during insertion of the gasket into the channel. Lengthwise stretching of a gasket decreases the width of the gasket, thus making the gasket easier to install. Unfortunately, after the installation is complete, the gasket tends to relax back (shorten) to its original, pre-stretched length. This relaxation of the elastic gasket material often creates a gap between the two butt ends of the gasket, the watertight closure thereby being rendered “non-watertight.” The resultant defective gasket needs to be replaced, not due to any obvious material defect, but solely due to the gap between the two gasket ends. This gasket replacement cycle may repeat itself again and again.
The Navy's gasket is usually supplied on spools by vendors, each spool carrying a specific length (e.g., 160 feet) of the gasket. The Navy purchases enough gasket material through the stock system alone to replace every gasket on every watertight door on an annual basis. At about $3.50 per foot, this amounts to about $2,500,000 spent annually by the Navy for gasket material replacement, which is cost in addition to the time required by personnel to remove and install the gaskets.
The main reason for such high usage of the Navy's gasket is not ripping, tearing, or “permanent set” of the gasket, but rather is the elasticity of the gasket—in particular, the propensity of the gasket material to be stretched before and during installation, and to then relax back to its previous, installed length over a period of time, thereby creating a gap between the two gasket ends.
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide method and apparatus for installing a gasket that is designed to be fit inside a channel included in or associated with a closure (such as may exist onboard a ship) so that the gasket imparts watertightness to the closure.
A further object of the present invention is to provide such method and apparatus that are facilitative of gasket installation.
Another object of the present invention is to provide such method and apparatus that, as compared with conventional approaches to gasket installation, reduce or minimize length-increasing elastic deformation of a gasket during gasket installation.
A typical embodiment of a gasket insertion device in accordance with the present invention includes a head and a handle. The head includes a right-trianguloid-profiled section and an L-profiled section. The right-trianguloid-profiled section has a hypotenuse surface. The handle is characterized by a geometric handle axis and is connected to the head at the hypotenuse surface. The handle axis is approximately perpendicular to the hypotenuse surface. The L-profiled section has a first interior surface and a second interior surface. A geometric first right angle is formed by the first interior surface and the second interior surface, and is characterized by a geometric first right angle bisector. The first bisector is approximately parallel to the handle axis and approximately perpendicular to the hypotenuse surface.
According to frequent inventive practice, the trianguloid-profiled section has, in addition to the hypotenuse surface, a first non-hypotenuse surface and a second non-hypotenuse surface. The L-profiled section has, in addition to the first interior surface and the second interior surface, a first exterior surface and a second exterior surface. A geometric second right angle is formed by the first exterior surface and the first non-hypotenuse surface, and is characterized by a geometric second right angle bisector, which is approximately perpendicular to the handle axis, approximately perpendicular to the first bisector, and approximately parallel to the hypotenuse surface. A geometric third right angle is formed by the second exterior surface and the second non-hypotenuse surface, and is characterized by a geometric third right angle bisector, which is approximately perpendicular to the handle axis, approximately perpendicular to the first bisector, approximately parallel to the hypotenuse surface, and approximately parallel to the second bisector.
The present invention's gasket insertion device, as typically embodied, is a handheld tool that enables personnel to insert gasket material into a watertight closure gasket channel without stretching the gasket. Elegant in its design and economical to fabricate, the inventive device eliminates the need for manual “muscling” of the gasket into the channel along the length of the channel, a forceful and labor-intensive activity that represents the primary causation for stretching of the gasket. The inventive device reduces the time required, and makes it easier, for personnel to install a gasket.
The cost-savings afforded by inventive practice can be significant, especially because of its mitigation or elimination of the gasket-stretching factor. For instance, inventive practice could save the Navy over a million dollars annually because of the alleviated need to procure and replenish gaskets for watertight closures. Moreover, fabrication of most embodiments of the present invention should be neither unduly difficult nor unduly expensive.
In order that the present invention may be clearly understood, it will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
Referring now to
With reference to
A problem arises over time after installation because the installer tends to stretch the elastic gasket 50, especially in the lengthwise direction, during installation. As shown in
Reference now being made to
Handle 200 has a geometric longitudinal axis a, an attached end 201, and an unattached end 202. Head 300 includes a trianguloid-profiled prismatic section 310 and an L-profiled prismatic section 320. Trianguloid-profiled prismatic section 310 has a longitudinal planar attachment surface 311, a longitudinal planar first non-attachment surface 312, and a longitudinal planar second non-attachment surface 313. Handle 200 is attached at its end 201 to trianguloid-profiled prismatic section 310 at the center of, and with its axis a perpendicular to, longitudinal attachment surface 311. L-profiled prismatic section 320 includes two generally planar segments, viz., a first generally planar segment 321 and a second generally planar segment 322. First generally planar segment 321 is significantly longer than (as shown in
First generally planar segment 321 has a longitudinal planar first L-interior segment surface 323 and a longitudinal planar first L-exterior segment surface 324. Second generally planar segment 322 has a longitudinal planar second L-interior segment planar surface 325 and a longitudinal planar second L-exterior segment planar surface 326. First L-interior segment surface 323 and second L-interior segment surface 325 form an L-interior right angle rIN that faces generally opposite the attachment surface 311 and whose geometric bisector b is approximately parallel to the handle 200 axis a and approximately perpendicular to attachment surface 311. First non-attachment surface 312 and first L-exterior segment surface 324 form a first L-exterior right angle rEX1, which has geometric bisector bEX1. Second non-attachment surface 313 and second L-exterior segment surface 326 form a second L-exterior right angle rEX2, which has geometric bisector bEX2. Geometric bisector bEX1 is approximately perpendicular to handle axis a, approximately perpendicular to geometric bisector b, and approximately parallel to attachment surface 311. Geometric bisector bEX2 is approximately perpendicular to handle axis a, approximately perpendicular to geometric bisector b, approximately parallel to attachment surface 311, and approximately parallel to geometric bisector bEX1.
According to frequent practice and as exemplified by this inventive embodiment, second non-attachment surface 313 and first L-exterior segment surface 324 face in generally opposite directions and are approximately coplanar, each of the two surfaces lying in geometric plane p. Trianguloid-profiled prismatic section 310 and L-profiled prismatic section 320 hence are coupled, or can be conceived to be coupled, along a planar joint 330 (shown by dashed line segment in
The inventive device 100 embodiment shown in
Particularly with reference to
Many closure gasket channels are characterized by two channel projections/protrusions that narrow the access opening into the channel. The projections/protrusions frequently are projecting/protruding lip-like formations separated from and pointing toward each other on opposite sides of and along the length of the channel, thereby partially closing the channel.
Head 300 is shown in
Angular deviations from perpendicularity with respect to the length of channel 60 may be taken by the user in rotatively moving handle 200 back and forth so as to “finesse” gasket 50 into a fully set position inside channel 60. Inventive manipulations same as or similar to those described herein and shown in
Now referring to
Note that T-profiled prismatic section 320T of inventive device embodiment 100A is analogous, in both structure and function, to L-profiled prismatic section 320 of inventive device embodiment 100. Of particular note, inventive device 100A's T-profiled prismatic section 320T describes T-interior right angle rINA, similarly as inventive device 100's L-profiled prismatic section 320 describes L-interior right angle rIN. Although the present inventors in their inventive testing found inventive device 100 to be preferable in general to inventive device 100A, inventive device 100A also offers beneficial usefulness, handheld implementation thereof being similar to that of inventive device 100. In particular, a user of inventive device 100A can utilize the interior right-angled surfaces of T-interior right angle rINA to conformingly contain and control a gasket 50, similarly as a user of inventive device 100 can utilize the interior right-angled surfaces of L-interior right angle rIN to conformingly contain and control a gasket 50.
The present invention, which is disclosed herein, is not to be limited by the embodiments described or illustrated herein, which are given by way of example and not of limitation. Other embodiments of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from consideration of the instant disclosure or from practice of the present invention. Various omissions, modifications, and changes to the principles disclosed herein may be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the true scope and spirit of the present invention, which is indicated by the following claims.
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