Static structures (e.g. – buildings) – Wall – ceiling – or floor designed for utilities
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-15
2003-01-21
Stephan, Beth A. (Department: 3637)
Static structures (e.g., buildings)
Wall, ceiling, or floor designed for utilities
C052S126400, C052S126600, C052S263000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06508037
ABSTRACT:
This invention relates to an accessible raised floor system for use in office buildings or the like.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Historically, building owners have not had to deal with tenant requirements for supplemental cooling, power and cabling, with the exception of special purpose computer or trading rooms. These special purpose rooms have been dealt with almost as if they were separate structures. Unless a building was occupant owned, a tenant had to deal with these requirements. Now, due to the changes in market economies, frequently landlords are forced to solve problems of substantial increases in power requirements, additional cooling and cable distribution.
As the use of office space has evolved since the development of personal computers (PC), there has been an escalation in the need for and frequency of re-organization and re-configuration of office space. Enormous amounts of effort and study have gone into the planning and design of office space in order to render its use more flexible and sympathetic to user functions. Most of these efforts have been concentrated in modular space planning and systems furniture engineered to accommodate PCs.
Modern day office requirements have placed burdens on heating/cooling, electrical power distribution and cabling systems which were never anticipated when even the most modern office buildings were built. The rates of office reorganization and reconfiguration have escalated from about 10% to 15%, per year U.S. averages, in the early 1990's, to 35% to 50% in the mid 1990's, with some companies and industries exceeding 100% per year. The technological life expectancy of local and wide area networks cabling and connectors is currently about eighteen months to two years.
Physical concentrations of PCs and other electrical enhancements such as facsimile machines, copiers, printers, scanners, and in particular, the personnel operating the equipment, have placed extra-ordinary burdens on the most sophisticated and powerful heating, ventilating and air conditioning systems. These concentrations of equipment and personnel generated heat are most frequently offset by increasing the velocity of chilled air from overhead diffusers, usually at the expense of other areas, and to the discomfort of personnel.
Traditionally and technically there have been roughly seven predominant methods of distributing heating/cooling, electrical power and cable in horizontal planes from vertical sources, whether from a building core or from other vertical chases. They have been:
1) Through a ceiling plenum;
2) Through the use of conventional raised flooring systems, as have been used in computer rooms;
3) In-floor conduits or proprietary ducts;
4) A combination of plenum and under-floor distribution through rigid conduit into poke-through outlet boxes to the floor above;
5) Through stud and drywall partitions and/or column enclosures;
6) Through power poles; and,
7) Through system furniture panels.
All of these systems require the feeding of electrical power wiring and cabling through studding, systems furniture, in-floor conduit or ducts. Convenient, horizontal retro-feeding of electrical power wiring or cabling through finished stud and dry wall partitions is particularly difficult, costly, disruptive and sometimes, impossible unless sufficient conduit has been pre-installed.
The most flexible and common of these systems has been the use of ceiling plenums. This plenum approach has severe difficulties and limitations. All work must be performed from ladders or scaffolding. Most connections to work surfaces must be through stud and dry wall partitions or so-called power poles vertically to work surface or floor levels and then distributed horizontally using more stud and dry wall partitions, systems furniture or in-floor conduit or duct.
Once additional power is in place, an undesirable result is a comparable increase in generated heat, requiring more cooling. Typically such additional heat loads have not been anticipated nor dealt with in the base building design or construction.
Localized cooling solutions are being dealt with by trying to increase the output of existing systems such as pushing more air by using higher blower velocities. Increases in air velocities result in increased noise levels and are really nothing more than cycling air more rapidly through the base system which has a finite heat absorbing capacity.
There have been proposals for retrofitted auxiliary flooring systems all of which suffer distinct disadvantages. With one proposal, a lower forced air plenum would be provided for conducting supplemental cooling air to a workspace where heat generating electronic equipment has been installed. Other flooring components would be formed to define enclosed ducts above the air plenum for power cables and communication conductors. It is necessary that these enclosed ducts have imperforate walls to prevent spread of an electrical fire. In the event of such a fire, the egress of the supplemental conditioning air from the plenum would obviously be undesirable. It is for these reasons that building codes require all wiring be encased in fire resistant conduit.
Prior proposals for supplemental flooring systems have all been excessively complex such that they required skilled installers for disproportionately long periods of time. Further, prior proposed systems have not been fully modular and had inadequate provision for access to service lines extending through such a system.
Accordingly, there is a need for a simple to install supplemental flooring system which will quickly and flexibly accommodate power cable, communication wiring, and supplemental cooling to meet the demands of both current day and future electronic equipment.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The steel embodiment as described herein in conjunction with reference to FIGS. 1 through 11 is the subject matter of U.S. Pat. No. 6,061,982, issuing on May 16, 2000. It is nonetheless disclosed in some detail to assist in understanding how the short comings of the prior art are overcome.
The flooring system of the present invention utilizes prefabricated base modules which are preferably about 3′ by 3′ in horizontal dimension. These modules are installed in side by side relationship on an existing building floor. The modules are interconnected. In a metal embodiment the interconnections are accomplished by sliding key tongues into key slots of adjacent modules. In a plastic embodiment pedestals for supporting panels have depensions which interlock with the base modules. In the metal embodiment, leveling to accommodate irregularities of the building floor is achieved by adjusting leveling screws threaded into base panels of the modules.
The base panels of the metal embodiment each have elongate corrugations which stiffen the panel in one direction. Pedestal strips with their own elongated corrugations are secured to the base panels with the corrugations of the strips and panels orthoganal to one another so that together they provide a stiff module base. The pedestal strips have a series of upstanding pedestal portions. The pedestal portions are open sided, truncated pyramids each of which has oppositely, inwardly sloping side surfaces and a flat top surface. In the preferred embodiment further strips are secured to the base panel in orthogonal relationship to the pedestal strips. The further strips have upstanding portions which nest within the pedestal portions to close the sides of the pedestal portions.
The metal pedestal strips include end half pedestals at the juncture of a pedestal with a side edge of the base panel. When the modules are installed these half pedestals are butted together such that together they form a structure corresponding to full pedestals formed intermediate the ends of the strips. Similarly, four comer pedestals together form a structure corresponding to a full pedestal.
The tapering sides of the metal pedestals are notched to receive snap in steel panels. The snap in panels collectively define a power cable chase floor and a communications cha
Stephan Beth A.
Watts Hoffman Fisher & Heinke Co., L.P.A.
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