Sun shelter

Abstract

An adjustable personal sun shelter to overlie a free-standing or integrated sun lounge or deck chair of the kind commonly occupied by a user while sunbathing beside a swimming pool. The adjustable personal sun shelter includes a base and a support structure that suspends a shade canopy in a cantilevered state above an underlying sun lounge at an optimal height to project shade over the sun lounge. The shade canopy is adjustable by a user to vary the amount of sunlight or shade received when occupying the underlying sun lounge. The shade canopy is adjustable by an extendable central member or by two or more parallel extendable side members, to which shade material is fastened. The shade canopy has a moveable leading end and a fixed trailing end. In the operational condition of the sun shelter, the length of the shade canopy can be increased by extending the leading end of the shade canopy relative to the trailing end, or the length can be decreased by retracted the leading end.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is the U.S. National Phase under 35. U.S.C. § 371 of International Application PCT / AU2020 / 050764, filed Jul. 27, 2020, which claims priority to Australian Application No. 2019902696, filed Jul. 29, 2019, and to Australian Application No. 2019904312, filed Nov. 15, 2019. The disclosures of the above described applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety and made a part of this specification.BACKGROUNDField[0002]The present invention relates to a sun shelter for the application of shade to outdoor lounges and chairs, such as are typically used on sun decks, or about swimming pools or on beaches. It will be convenient to describe the invention in relation to its particular use with sun lounges supplied for guests of hotels, resorts and cruise ships, although it needs to be appreciated that the invention could be used with other outdoor reclining or seating furniture, such as deck chairs.Related Art[000...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Importantly, the position of the sun in the sky and the height and size of the canopy of a sun shelter significantly affects how much useful shade falls directly beneath the canopy for the benefit of a person occupying a sun lounge below the canopy, and how much additional shade is projected to areas beyond directly beneath the canopy's perimeter and which is generally superfluous in terms of protecting a person using a sun lounge against exposure to ultraviolet radiation.

This commonly results in a person using the sun lounge being forced to receive more or less sun or shade than desired for extended periods throughout the day depending on their position relative to the sun and the center pole.

This occurs because, where two sun lounges share a single umbrella positioned between them, this uneven distribution of shade often results in the sun lounge on the side nearest the sun being exposed to more direct and reflected sunlight than the other.

This problem is more pronounced during morning and afternoon when the sun is lower in the sky, whereby the sun's rays can readily penetrate diagonally beneath the elevated canopy.

This limited degree of adjustability is generally unsatisfactory because the canopy can become more oblique in its orientation relative to the sun, thereby producing a smaller amount of narrow shade, while significantly increasing resistance to wind load.

This pole height has an associated negative consequence in that the greater the elevation of the canopy above the ground, the greater the scope for more sun light to penetrate underneath the umbrella.

Many of the limitations discussed above also restrict the suitability of side-mounted umbrellas (for example, wall-mounted or cantilevered umbrellas that do not have a central pole) and often result in unsatisfactory shade performance in situations where mobility and limited space are a consideration.

The close proximity of adjacent sun lounges in the settings described above where available space is limited, exacerbates the aforementioned problems associated with the height of conventional umbrellas and the necessarily large relative surface area of their canopies, which together cause shade to be projected over a significantly greater space than that occupied by the intended sun lounge or lounges they overlie.

Further, in such circumstances there is little or no scope to reposition sun lounges that are arranged in close proximity to one another or to adjust the placement of the umbrella to negate the shifting of shade due to the sun's movement across th

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