Fire escape – ladder – or scaffold – Platform with elevating or lowering means – Suspended
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-13
2001-06-26
Chin-Shue, Alvin (Department: 3634)
Fire escape, ladder, or scaffold
Platform with elevating or lowering means
Suspended
Reexamination Certificate
active
06250426
ABSTRACT:
The invention concerns jack-up platform structures used for construction and exterior renovation and maintenance work on buildings, including in particular residential buildings, administrative or industrial buildings, but also, by extension, vessels either floating or in dry dock.
Known platform structures are for example described in the French patent published under number FR-A-2671336.
These structures include a first and second vertical mast each equipped with a rack. Pinions mounted on movable motorized carriages engage with the rack of each mast and drive a horizontal platform supported by the carriages in a vertical translation movement. The platform, and the personnel and tools it supports, can be raised or lowered at will with a view to carrying out precise work at an adequate height on a building.
Known platforms stretch between the masts and also extend on either side of them. They are composed of modular elements which, when assembled, form at least three distinct segments: one central segment and two side segments. The central segment stretches only between the masts, while the side segments extend beyond the masts. The side segments and the central segment are connected, at the height of each mast, to the carriages.
The connections between the segments and the carriages have at least a degree of rotational freedom, such that a slight inclination of one segment with respect to the horizontal is tolerated. In this way, segments are independent from each other such that a force applied to any one of them is transmitted not to another segment but only, in the form of a couple, to the carriage and, more precisely, to the masts via guide rollers. Rotation of the segments with respect to the masts is then used to create a complex mechanism that immobilises movement of the platform when the inclination becomes too great.
A structure such as this does however involve the construction of floating-plate carriages, in which pinions are attached to a plate floating in horizontal and vertical translation in the carriage. This plate, which supports the gear pinions, is held in a housing of the carriage by elastic means, usually springs. Forces transmitted by the segments to the carriages are then distributed evenly to four guide rollers arranged in pairs on either side of the carriage, one above the other on each side. This type of mechanism is complex and expensive.
In addition, robots carried by the platform are unable to move from one segment to the other but remain confined to one of them.
Considering the state of the art outlined above, one problem the invention proposes to solve is that of building a jack-up structure that overcomes the above-mentioned drawbacks at lesser cost, whereby the transmission of forces acting on the pinions engaged with the rack does not generate couples resulting in disturbance of the platform's translation movement.
According to the invention, the solution to this problem lies in a jack-up structure in which the platform stretching between the masts and possibly extending to either side of them is rigid, and whereby shafts supporting the platform are placed on the carriages perpendicular to the rack, i.e. with center lines orthogonal to and intersecting the rack.
The aim of the invention is therefore a jack-up platform structure comprising:
a first and second vertical mast each equipped with a rack;
a first and second mobile carriage running the length of the first and second masts respectively each containing a pinion driven in rotation by a motor and engaged with the mast rack, plus a support;
a platform carried by the support of the first and second carriages stretching between the first and second masts, characterized in that the platform is rigid and in that the supports of the first and second carriages have shafts arranged perpendicular to the rack of the first and second masts respectively.
The rigidity of the platform, between the masts and on either side of them, enables robots carried by the platform to move over its entire length.
The following description, which is not exhaustive, will afford a better understanding of the practical aspects of the invention.
REFERENCES:
patent: 3313376 (1967-04-01), Holland
patent: 3318414 (1967-05-01), Meek
patent: 3415343 (1968-12-01), Svensson
patent: 4171033 (1979-10-01), Rust
patent: 4293054 (1981-10-01), Pieri
patent: 5159993 (1992-11-01), St-Germain
patent: 5555952 (1996-09-01), van Mol
patent: 7412911 (1976-05-01), None
patent: 2012091 (1992-07-01), None
patent: 4005588 (1994-03-01), None
Chin-Shue Alvin
HEK Manufacturing B.V.
Locke Liddell & Sapp LLP
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