Buoys – rafts – and aquatic devices – Water rescue or life protecting apparatus – Personal flotation device
Patent
1995-01-20
1996-10-22
Sotelo, Jesus D.
Buoys, rafts, and aquatic devices
Water rescue or life protecting apparatus
Personal flotation device
B63C 908
Patent
active
055671918
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
This invention relates to inflatable life jackets.
Inflatable life jackets are worn by personnel who work in an environment or circumstances where there is the danger or risk that they will have to survive being placed in the sea or another body of water, the life jacket providing the necessary buoyancy to keep the person afloat for long periods. Typically, life jackets may be used by pilots, particularly helicopter pilots and their passengers, services personnel in transit on or over water, and personnel such as off-shore platform workers whose job involves the risk or danger of their being placed in the sea in emergency conditions.
Inflatable life jackets may be loose items which are placed on the person in the event of an emergency, but in more common practise today in relation to those personnel whose work involves constant danger that at any time they may be placed in the sea, the inflatable life jackets are permanently worn in readiness for such emergencies. The inflatable life jacket may be an item which is fitted to the user's body by means of a harness and buckles and the like, or it may in turn be permanently fixed to for example an abandonment suit which is of a type to protect the user against hypothermia in the event that the user in an emergency may have to spend time in the water. This arrangement will be adopted in cases where because of the user's environment emergency circumstances resulting in the person being placed in the water may arise at short notice, the person not having sufficient time to don the abandonment suit and the life jacket.
Because of their function, life jackets have been developed in a number of respects including that the jacket is automatically inflated, for example by a pressure and/or water sensitive device, in the event of the user falling into the water. They may alternatively be inflated by manual actuation of a mechanism which releases the inflating medium. The inflating medium typically is a cartridge of a liquid which is held under pressure and which flashes to a gas upon release of that pressure. Such inflation medium may for example be carbon dioxide.
Furthermore, when the life jacket is carried by the person it is in a collapsed or deflated state, and may be held in a flexible cover or casing which opens in controlled fashion under the inflating influence of the life jacket.
Some life jackets are single cavity jackets, whilst others are double cavity jackets. With a single cavity jacket, two panels of sheet material are secured together around their edges to form the cavity, whilst in a double cavity jacket three layers of sheet material are joined together at their edges, so that the cavities are formed on respective sides of the middle layer of sheet material. Each cavity is associated with an inflation cartridge, and in the case of a double cavity jacket, the operating mechanisms of the cartridges are inter-connected so that should either cartridge fail to perform its inflation function automatically, as described above, then the actuation of one of the cartridges and the inflation of its associated cavity causes the operation of the other cartridge mechanism.
Inflatable life jackets fall into three categories, namely single lobe life jackets, asymmetrical life jackets and split front twin lobe life jackets.
The single lobe life jacket is an inflatable body having a head aperture therein, and the user applies the jacket by passing his head through the said aperture. It is not possible for single front jackets to be permanently attached to abandonment suits. When the jacket is inflated, the section of the jacket resting on the chest is inflated and forms the main buoyancy means of the jacket. The disadvantages of the single front life jacket include that it does not allow itself to be attached to a suit; it is more difficult to don; it has a bulk centrally on the chest when packed which can be obstructive; is not particularly comfortable or convenient to wear on a permanent basis, especially if the user also wears an abandonment suit, because he cannot
REFERENCES:
patent: 3441963 (1969-05-01), Steinthal
patent: 4236264 (1980-12-01), Britzman
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