Static structures (e.g. – buildings) – Barrier or major section mounted for in situ repositioning;...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-26
2001-05-22
Kent, Christopher T. (Department: 3635)
Static structures (e.g., buildings)
Barrier or major section mounted for in situ repositioning;...
C049S409000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06233878
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to the field of sliding walls. It concerns a sliding wall with a plural number of individually slidable wall elements, with each of the wall elements at its upper edge near the ceiling being delimited by a horizontally aligned support profile, and being laterally slidable along a common track arranged above the support profile by means of at least one running gear attached to the support profile, with each wall element comprising its own drive with an electrically operated drive motor, said drive being attached to the wall element and interacting with the track by way of drive means.
Such a sliding wall is for example known from printed publication DE-C3-24 04 875 or printed publication WO 97/42388.
STATE OF THE ART
Increasingly, in large spaces for variable use, for example in shopping malls and similar, sliding walls are used for flexible partial or complete separation of areas. The wall elements of such sliding walls are suspended from the ceiling so as to be easily slidable; they can be united along a track to form a closed wall or they can be pushed together into a parking position on the wall side of the space, to form an upright stack taking up little room. Moving of the individual wall elements can take place manually, but automatic solutions are also imaginable where the individual wall elements are driven by an integrated electric motor and controlled by a central control unit.
The wall elements themselves can be configured as glass elements without lateral frame components so as to form a continuous glass wall, said wall elements being delimited on the top by a support profile for suspension in the track, and optionally on the bottom may comprise a floor profile for guidance or locking purposes. However, the wall elements can also be non-transparent, for example made of wood, metal or other wall construction materials.
Sliding walls of the type described have to meet increasingly stringent requirements both concerning aesthetic appearance and practical considerations such as space-saving installation or flexible (modular) expandability or simple changeover from manual to automatic operation. Known solutions can no longer adequately meet these requirements or cannot meet them at all. From the printed publication DE-C3-24 04 875 mentioned in the introduction, a sliding wall made of movable wall elements is known, with each of said elements being slidably suspended by means of two track carriages, from a rail attached to the underside of the ceiling. Each individual wall element is driven by an electric motor integrated in the wall element; said electric motor driving a pinion provided in one of the track carriages; said pinion interacting with a chain, track or similar attached to the side wall inside the track. On the other track carriage, the current required for the electric motor is taken up by current collectors, from a conductor rail arranged within the track. The electric motor is positioned vertically, below the upper cross piece in the double-walled area of the wall element. Thus the known solution is not suitable for wall elements which are configured as transparent glass elements. The same also applies to the motor-driven room-divider wall element disclosed in DE-C2-26 43 905 as well as the room divider described in DE-C2-31 47 273.
Furthermore, from DE-C2-29 10 185 a door or similar with a motor-driven slidable leaf is known where the leaf is attached to a track carriage guided by means of rollers in a support profile. The electric motor provided for the drive which interacts with a pinion in a rack profile in the support profile is accommodated above the track carriage in the interior of the carrier profile. While this arrangement allows a free selection of the type and shape of the leaf, the accommodation of the drive in the track carrier profile however, requires a very wide large-volume track which takes up a lot of space and which can only be integrated with difficulty into a ceiling. Accommodating the drive inside the track further necessitates the provision of a removable cover for maintenance and repair purposes which in turn leads to additional complexity in the construction of the track. Furthermore, the disclosed solution is not practical for a sliding wall with a plural number of individual elements if for no other reason because electricity supply to the electric motor is via a longitudinally extending spiral cable accommodated within the track.
In the case of another known movable sliding wall comprising several panel shaped wall elements (EP-B1-0 597 208) the wall elements are also motor driven via a drive unit which is accommodated in the ceiling rail, together with the track carriage. Here too, an especially wide and high ceiling rail or track must be used which takes up a lot of room and makes installation and maintenance more difficult.
The printed publication WO 97/42388 mentioned in the introduction describes a sliding wall where the individual wall elements are driven by a horizontally-positioned electric motor accommodated on the track carriage and which together with the associated current collectors protrudes from the track carriage laterally, i.e. across the direction of travel. This known solution is characterised by an even wider design in the track area. In addition it has the following disadvantage: Quite frequently the user of a sliding wall first has a manually moveable wall installed without motor drive, but later wants to automate the installed wall by adding an electric motor-drive with control unit. In this case subsequent automation not only requires considerable expenditure but also leads to extensive downtime of the sliding wall. If on the other hand a track suitable for later automation is installed right from the start, there are unjustifiably high and unnecessary initial costs for a simple manually operated wall and unnecessarily large space requirements.
PRESENTATION OF THE INVENTION
It is thus the object of the invention to create a sliding wall which can be flexibly adapted to a very large variety of applications and uses; which requires little space concerning the rail attached to the ceiling; which is designed both for manual and automatic operation without any change in the rail structure; and which meets even more stringent requirements for aesthetic appearance.
In a sliding wall of the type mentioned in the introduction, this object is met in that the drive motor is arranged within the support profile. The arrangement of the drive motor in the support profile, according to the invention makes it possible to have an extremely slim-line design of the track attached to the ceiling because practically no additional space for the drive needs to be provided in the rail. As is also the case with manually slidable wall elements, the rail only needs to be designed for accommodating and guiding the running gear. The conductor rail and the drive means accommodated in the track, such as for example a rack, toothed belt or similar, which are needed for an electrical drive, can be integrated in the track in a space-saving way. Consequently the same slim track can be used both for manual and for automatic operation. This makes any future change from manual operation to automatic operation extremely easy, later on only requiring insertion of a conductor rail and for example a toothed belt—if they are not already present. In addition, the existing running gear merely needs to be replaced with running gears containing an electric motor drive and current collectors. In addition, the arrangement of the drive motor in the support profile has the advantage that a transparent glass panel or any other materials and element structures attached to the support profile can be used without any restrictions, because the space requirement for the drive only applies to the support profile.
From the point of view of the space required it is particularly favourable if according to a first preferred embodiment of the sliding wall according to the invention, the drive axis of the drive motor is a
Krähenbühl Hans
Nyffenegger Jurg
Ulrich Heinz
Finnegan Henderson Farabow Garrett & Dunner L.L.P.
Kaba Gilgen AG
Kent Christopher T.
Thissell Jennifer I.
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