Road structure – process – or apparatus – Traffic steering device or barrier
Patent
1994-03-02
1995-11-28
Neuder, William P.
Road structure, process, or apparatus
Traffic steering device or barrier
49 35, E01F 1300
Patent
active
054701694
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a device for locking a sliding body, and more particularly a retractable road boundary-mark.
BACKGROUND ART
It is already known that the function of a boundary-mark consists in temporarily closing a space to vehicles while letting pedestrians cross when it is in its raised position or when it is protruding above the ground, and to enable authorized people to put their car in the space in question once the boundary-mark has been retracted into the ground by hand for example. Various systems for locking this kind of boundary-mark in a raised and/or a lowered position are already known, but they are not satisfactory particularly because they are not reliable enough, they are fragile and can be forced by hooligans, while another disadvantage arises from the fact that users may fail to put the boundary-mark back in its raised position once they have got over it.
The present invention therefore aims at providing a locking device of the above-mentioned type which overcomes the disadvantages of known systems and which is solid and reliable while being relatively inexpensive.
Another purpose of the invention is to provide a device which prevents the users from leaving the boundary-mark in its retracted position, that is in its lowered position once their car has gone over the device.
A further object is to protect such device from the harmful effect of outside agents such as surface waters, dust, sand and gravel.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the invention, the above and other aims which will appear hereinafter, such as the automatic elimination of backlash and wear, are achieved thanks to a device of the above-mentioned type characterized in that it comprises a locking rod which extends parallel to the sliding axis of the sliding body and which may rotate about its longitudinal axis, but cannot move parallel thereto, said locking rod presenting a plurality of transverse notches whose number and mutual distance along said locking rod are respectively equal to the number and the mutual distance of said predetermined positions of the sliding body whose bottom is convex and is linked with the side cylindrical surface of the locking rod, and which are angularly spaced from one another about the lengthwise axes of said locking rod when they are viewed from their axis direction, without two successive notches overlapping, and a device with a bolt attached to said sliding body and capable of being urged into said notches by means of a spring force; and means for rotating said locking rod around its axis so as to bring it successively into predetermined angular positions into which one of the transverse notches of the rod, viewed from the rod axis direction, opens outwardly in the direction of the bolt which is meant to enter into said notch.
It shall be easily understood that with such device, the bolt is pushed by a spring force into one of the notch of the locking rod according to the invention for each predetermined position of the sliding body, for example for the raised and the lowered positions in case of a retractable road boundary-mark. If said rod is then rotated, the contact point between the bottom of the convex notch and the bolt end goes away from the axis of the rod, and the bolt is outwardly driven as it slides on the bottom of the notch. Then there is a time when the bolt is no longer held back by the notch and when the it can slide along a generator of the cylindrical side surface of the locking rod, under the influence of the control unit which acts upon the sliding body until it meets the following notch of the rod into which it enters so as to be locked, a process which stops the sliding body attached to the bolt from moving.
According to one advantageous embodiment of the present invention, particularly concerning the machining of the locking rod, each notch of said rod is radially delimited by a bottom made of a cylindrical revolution surface whose axis, parallel with the locking rod, is placed between said axis and the side surface of t
REFERENCES:
patent: 4433787 (1984-02-01), Cook et al.
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