Telescopic Canopy Roller Guidance for Jamming
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing telescopic roofing systems for swimming pools and gardens face issues with jamming due to insufficient torsional rigidity, uneven surfaces, and increased friction, making it difficult for single or dual-person operation, especially when components need to be moved longitudinally.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves identical support profiles with transverse webs and guide profiles that accommodate rollers, providing a four-point guidance system with integrated guide profiles within the carrier profiles, ensuring precise tracking and stability, and preventing dirt ingress, which enhances mobility and anchoring capabilities.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Weight of moving object
If lightweight construction is used for modular components, then the components can be moved at all, but the components are not sufficiently torsionally rigid and jam against each other in guide systems
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs composite structural design combining aluminum profiles with reinforced cross-sections and integrated guide elements. The modular components use composite construction with multiple structural elements (longitudinal beams, cross beams, guide profiles) working together to achieve both light weight and sufficient torsional rigidity, preventing jamming in guide systems while maintaining movability.
2Reliability
If interlocking longitudinal rails are used for guidance, then the components are longitudinally guided relative to one another, but the frictional forces increase enormously and longitudinal mobility is drastically impeded
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces the interlocking longitudinal rails mechanical guidance system with a roller-based guidance system. Rollers with vertical axes of rotation are mounted on the modular components to engage with guide profiles, substituting the high-friction interlocking mechanism with a low-friction rolling contact system that maintains guidance while dramatically reducing frictional forces and improving longitudinal mobility.
3Reliability
If rollers with horizontal axis of rotation are added to the guide, then guidance is improved, but even slight twisting of components leads to rollers blocking in the guides
Solution Approach 1:
The patent inverts the axis orientation of the guide rollers from horizontal to vertical. This inversion allows the rollers to accommodate twisting and unevenness in the modular components without blocking, as the vertical axis rotation enables the rollers to self-adjust to angular misalignments while maintaining guidance function and mobility on uneven installation surfaces.
4Ease of operation
If separate guide rails are laid in the erection floor area, then the longitudinal mobility of components is improved, but considerable additional effort is required for creation of rails and base foundation work
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the guide function directly into the modular components themselves by integrating guide profiles onto the component structures. This eliminates the need for separate guide rails in the erection floor and reduces base foundation work, as the guidance system is combined with the modular components, simplifying installation while maintaining improved longitudinal mobility.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
This design improves directional stability, running smoothness, and mobility of the components, allowing for precise anchoring and reduced maintenance, while maintaining a slim profile that reduces the overall width and space requirements.
Implementation Method 1
each lower longitudinal edge is provided with a horizontal guide roller projecting in the direction of the respective adjacent property developer, which are also height-staggered and are each fitted with rollers, each of which has a vertical axis of rotation
Implementation Method 2
The roller arrangement firstly defines the relative distance between the longitudinally movable lower longitudinal beams and thus also the components as a whole and ensures additional guidance both in the transverse and longitudinal directions of the components involved
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2~3
Figure 4~5
AI summary
The canopy (1) comprises two modular components (2,2'), which are formed interlocked in a telescopic manner and comprises a lower carrier structure on both sides. The rotational axis of a transverse roll is stored swiveling in a transverse bar. The transverse bar is arranged in an area of the front side end of a carrier profile.