Conveyors: power-driven – Conveyor or accessory therefor specialized to convey people – By stairway having steps forming an endless member
Patent
1999-08-02
2000-08-08
Bidwell, James R.
Conveyors: power-driven
Conveyor or accessory therefor specialized to convey people
By stairway having steps forming an endless member
B65G 2312
Patent
active
060987790
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a sloping transportation apparatus including an escalator, which has a step with an integral tread face permitting a large-sized object such as a wheelchair or large-sized baggage to be placed thereon and which is installed as a public passageway or in works to thereby contribute welfare and convenience.
BACKGROUND ART
Various types of escalators capable of carrying a large-sized object such as a wheelchair have already been developed and put to practical use. All of these types of escalators look like an ordinary escalator in appearance but are provided with mechanisms for transforming a special group of steps into a level surface when it is necessary to transport the large sized object and an attendant's help is necessary for operating the mechanism and placing the object. Accordingly, ordinary users are excluded and it is necessary that the traveling operation be suspended for a considerably long time, giving rise to a problem that ordinary users have to endure inconvenience. In addition, the escalators of the aforementioned types are generally complicated in structure and costly. Further, a rise of the wheelchair carrying step is twice or three times as large as that of an ordinary rise, thus impeding passengers' steps. There has also been proposed an escalator capable of carrying a large-sized object, in which separate tracks are provided individually for one or two additional steps added to an ordinary step so as to form a step for carrying a large-sized object and for an intermediate step intervening between an ordinary step and the additional step, thereby eliminating the need for the transformation mechanism. Because of an increased number of tracks, however, it is difficult to put this type of escalator into practical use. Meanwhile, a wheel stopper conventionally used is a retractable type.
DISCLOSURE OF INVENTION
The present invention provides a sloping transportation apparatus including an escalator, which is capable of carrying a large-sized object without requiring a complicated transformation mechanism unlike conventional escalators for carrying a wheelchair and without the need of a large number of separate tracks, simple in structure and can curtail the labor and time associated with operation.
Tracks employed in the invention, on which the steps travel, are similar to those to which steps of identical size are coupled, and at least one reduced step with a reduced run is connected before and behind an enlarged step having a single tread face permitting a large-sized object to be placed thereon. A step group have suitably varied shapes and dimensions, and no special manipulation is required substantially except for the operation of a wheel stopper mechanism. During traveling operation, the group of steps including the enlarged step capable of carrying a large-sized object such as a wheelchair on its single enlarged tread face appears periodically. Provided the ran of the enlarged step is A and the run of ordinary steps is AO, then an excess of the run of the enlarged step is A-AO. At least one adjacent step preceding and succeeding the enlarged step has a reduced run so that the steps may be equally joined in a horizontal traveling section. The reduced run is set not to cause a passenger any inconvenience, and the reduced steps should preferably be small in number. The aforementioned excess of the run of the enlarged step may be equally divided between the adjacent reduced steps preceding and succeeding the enlarged step, and in this case a reduction X of the run required of each reduced step is (A-AO)/2. For simplicity's sake, approximate numerical values will be given as respective dimensions in the following description. The following describes cases where the invention is applied to an escalator of conventional type in which steps are reversed during circulation and the run A of the enlarged step is set to 1200 mm so that a large-sized motorized wheelchair can be placed thereon.
(I): In the case where the run AO of the tread faces
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