Composite Window Gasket With Hinged Corners for Uniform Sealing
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing window frame gaskets often fail to provide adequate sealing at corners due to inaccurate measurement, material shrinkage, or uneven thickness, compromising thermal insulation and water-tightness.
Innovation Solution
A composite gasket with reduced cross-sectional areas acting as hinges, allowing seamless integration around corners without material doubling, and featuring projections for secure attachment to window frames and glazing units, ensuring uniform thickness and effective sealing.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a single gasket strip is used to seal all borders on one face of a glazing unit, then the number of gaskets is reduced, but the gasket thickness becomes uneven at corners causing gaps and poor sealing
Solution Approach 1:
The gasket is divided into multiple straight portions (first portion, second portion, third portion, fourth portion) that are connected at corners. Each portion maintains a constant cross-sectional area, while the corner connections use reduced cross-sectional area to allow bending without material doubling. This segmentation resolves the contradiction by enabling a single continuous gasket to seal all borders while maintaining uniform thickness at sealing surfaces.
Solution Approach 2:
The gasket features localized variations in cross-sectional area: constant cross-section along straight portions for uniform sealing thickness, and reduced cross-section at corner regions to enable bending. This local differentiation allows the gasket to achieve both continuity around corners and uniform thickness at sealing surfaces, resolving the contradiction between single-gasket simplicity and thickness uniformity.
2Manufacturing precision
If separate gasket strips are used for each border of the glazing unit, then gasket thickness can be uniform, but corners may not be adequately sealed due to measurement inaccuracies and material shrinkage
Solution Approach 1:
Multiple separate gasket strips are merged into a single continuous composite gasket that includes straight portions for each border and corner portions for connections. This merging ensures continuous sealing around corners without gaps, while the constant cross-sectional area portions maintain uniform thickness. The unified structure eliminates measurement and alignment issues associated with multiple separate gaskets.
Solution Approach 2:
The gasket is pre-formed as a continuous composite structure with predetermined corner portions and straight portions in a single extrusion process. This preliminary formation ensures proper geometry and continuity before installation, eliminating on-site measurement and assembly errors that compromise corner sealing reliability.
3Device complexity
If the gasket is folded onto itself at corners to orient lengths at different angles, then a single gasket strip can seal all borders, but the gasket thickness doubles at corners causing gaps
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of folding the gasket in the plane (which doubles thickness), the invention uses corner portions with reduced cross-sectional area that enable bending in three-dimensional space. This dimensional approach allows the gasket to change direction at corners while maintaining constant thickness at sealing surfaces, resolving the contradiction between single-gasket simplicity and thickness uniformity.
Solution Approach 2:
The cross-sectional area parameter is selectively modified: reduced at corner portions to enable bending without material doubling, and maintained constant along straight portions for uniform sealing thickness. This parameter differentiation allows the gasket to achieve both configurational flexibility and thickness uniformity simultaneously.
Data Source
Figure 1a~2
Figure 1c
Figure 3~4
AI summary
A gasket (100) for a window frame assembly comprises a first portion (102a) and a second portion (102b) connected together by a region of reduced cross-sectional area (101a) so as to act as a hinge. At least a section of the first portion (102a) is arranged to be interposed between a glazing unit and a first window frame member and at least a section of the second portion (102b) is arranged to be interposed between the glazing unit and a second window frame member which is at a non-zero angle to the first window frame member.