Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor or accessory therefor specialized to convey people – Moving hand-support structure
Patent
1992-03-11
1994-01-04
Bidwell, James R.
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor or accessory therefor specialized to convey people
Moving hand-support structure
B66B 900
Patent
active
052752704
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to a handrail for escalators, moving walkways and the like, comprising an endless, flexible strip with a gripping region and a guiding region which, in operation, slide on a fixed guideway, and one or more tensile supports embedded in the strip and consisting of high-strength materials with limited extensibility and to a process for its production.
Known handrails of the said type consist of continuous endless strips of natural or synthetic rubber with incorporated reinforcing layers. Although these known handrails have given excellent results in operation, their production is extremely complicated. The known handrails are produced in the form of full-length handrails or in long lengths and must then be vulcanized length by length, for which purpose they must each be processed in a vulcanization press. After vulcanizing, the handrail is joined together to form an endless loop in a relatively complicated and not always satisfactory manner.
Furthermore, so-called link-type handrail strips are known, which are made up of individual elements of the same cross-section. In this arrangement, the elements are either connected to one another directly (German Patent Specification 1,811,982) or are mounted on a common, continuous drag chain (U.S. Pat. No. 2,766,886). The disadvantage of the known link-type handrail strips consists in the fact that they exhibit excessively high elongation in the direction of running since the play between each pair of elements due to the production and assembly methods adds up cumulatively over the whole length to an impermissibly large play. This is particularly the case with wear after prolonged running and is noticeable by a sharp rise in the running noise. A further disadvantage is the wear which arises due to the friction between the individual elements and the guide rails.
From U.S. Pat. No. 2,778,882 a handrail is known which is made up of plastic bodies and an endless covering of elastic plastics material or rubber. The basic bodies which are made of solid plastics material are individually or in groups, formed in distance around tensile ropes. To get a continuous condition for the covering, the mutually facing sides of the basic bodies are supplied with projected, on space arranged spouts.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The object on which the invention is based is to provide a handrail of the type stated at the outset which can be produced more simply and with lower outlay while retaining the good characteristics of previous designs.
This object is achieved according to the invention by the fact that the strip is divided in its longitudinal direction into individual segments, which follow closely upon one another, and are molded firmly around the continuous support and the segments encircle the stationary course and are supplied with a gripping area as well as a sliding area.
The handrail according to the invention has the advantage that complete segments can be produced independently of one another in close succession, either individually or in groups, being molded around the continuous tensile support. The tensile support can thus be encapsulated in the individual segments in the same operation in which the individual segments are produced. As an alternative, however, it is also possible to produce the individual segments separately beforehand and connect them firmly to the tensile support in a second operation, for example by bonding, welding or the like. An additional continuous cover is not necessary.
Due to the concept according to the invention, it is furthermore also possible for the segments forming the strip to be formed by a thermoplastic elastomer. These segments can be molded around the tensile support by an injection molding or blow molding method. As an alternative, the segments can also be produced from expandable polyurethane using the RIM method.
The successive segments, which expediently have an approximately rectangular shape in plan view, can in the gripping area overlap one another. This ensures that the h
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patent: 3778882 (1973-12-01), Cameron et al.
patent: 3865225 (1975-02-01), Phal
patent: 3949858 (1976-04-01), Ballocci et al.
patent: 4852713 (1989-08-01), Tatai et al.
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