Land vehicles – Wheeled – Occupant propelled type
Patent
1991-05-02
1993-09-14
Pape, Joseph D.
Land vehicles
Wheeled
Occupant propelled type
280647, 297 44, B62B 1100
Patent
active
052442225
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to a seat, chair or wheelchair that can be folded from an unfolded position for use to a folded position when not in use.
Such wheelchairs are already known and they generally include a chassis equipped with two carrying wheels and two guiding wheels composed on one hand of two upright bars to which is connected a back, often of a flexible material and on the other hand of two lateral sides to which is connected a seat generally made of canvas, and finally a set of articulated cross braces enabling the wheelchair to be folded by bringing its two sides together.
In this respect the French Patent FR-A-2.252.838 describes a wheelchair with a rigid seat and back, the characteristic of which is to be collapsible; this particular wheelchair is composed of two symmetrical parts following a vertical axial plane joined together by two articulation sets, one at the rear of the back and the other under the seat. Such a wheelchair already has an important advantage over wheelchairs known to date, in as far as it offers a seat and a back of a rigid material while enabling the unit to fold easily. But in spite of this, such a wheelchair has the drawback of being relatively heavy and expensive due to the double articulation it includes and which increases the weight of the chair which, by nature, is intended to be transported often by the disabled person him/herself.
The collapsible wheelchair proposed according to this invention significantly eliminates the above-mentioned drawbacks in that it eliminates any cross brace from the articulation allowing the unfolding of the rigid seat and rigid back of a collapsible wheelchair. In this respect, according to the invention, the collapsible wheelchair which is equipped with a chassis composed of two separate identical lateral sides each including one virtually vertical upright bar, a lower arm bearing a carrying wheel at the rear and a guiding wheel at the front, and a higher arm--the said higher and lower arms being solid with the virtually vertical upright bar, is characterized in that the lateral sides are only joined together by the joint action of a seat, a back and a foot rest including one or two parts articulated between each other, the seat and the back both being composed of two symmetrical, rigid half-pieces articulated between each other along the median axis respectively of the seat and the back.
According to a preferred mode of the invention, the two half-pieces of the seat and the back are rigid parts of a virtually general rectangular shape forming respectively both the seat and the back, with a rectangular cross-section and a second central part with a virtually triangular cross-section offering an upper side, a lateral side perpendicular to the upper side and a lower sloped side, the external wing including on its external edge a tubular arrangement acting as a hinge to associate in rotation the seat or the back with the chassis, the central part of the half-pieces being substantially, although not exclusively, equipped with tubular eyelets placed along the intersection between the lateral side and the lower side, to form the central hinge between the two half-pieces of the seat or back.
Such a collapsible wheelchair is very easy to fold since, in lifting the central hinge between the two half-pieces of the seat, the two lateral sides of the chair come together and cause the central hinge to fold between the two half-pieces of the back. The wheelchair is thus completely folded and by a reverse operation, just as easy, it is unfolded and ready to use.
According to a first variant each lateral side of the chassis can be formed by a generally quadrangular shaped frame, a first side of which corresponds to the seat, a second side extended upwards corresponds to the back and a third side extended downwards and curved towards the front correspond to the foot rest ; the carrying wheel is mounted close to the lower top of the back side and the guiding wheel, under the fourth side which is preferably parallel to the seat side. This chassis can
REFERENCES:
patent: 2485016 (1949-10-01), Rideout
patent: 4770432 (1988-09-01), Wagner
patent: 4867506 (1989-09-01), Chavez
patent: 4917395 (1990-04-01), Gabriele
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