Floor Panel Locking Structure for Resistance-Free Vertical Folding
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing mechanical locking systems for floor panels face challenges with separation and resistance issues during vertical folding, leading to installation difficulties and potential damage, especially with flexible tongues that require complex production methods and materials.
Innovation Solution
A locking system featuring a displaceable tongue with protrusions and cavities that allow vertical locking without snapping resistance, using a single directional force along the edges, eliminating separation forces and simplifying the installation process by overlapping protrusions in a vertically locked position.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If vertical folding method is used to connect floor panels, then installation speed is improved, but separation forces and resistance issues occur during installation
Solution Approach 1:
The locking system employs a displaceable tongue that can move horizontally along the joint edge during installation. This dynamic element allows the tongue to be pushed horizontally to engage with the tongue groove, enabling vertical folding installation while eliminating separation forces and resistance through its movable design
Solution Approach 2:
The locking system is divided into separate functional components: a displaceable tongue portion and a tongue groove portion. This segmentation allows the tongue to be independently displaced horizontally to engage the groove, facilitating easy installation without generating harmful separation forces
2Ease of operation
If conventional locking systems with projections and indentations are used, then short edges can be locked horizontally, but additional machining costs increase production complexity
Solution Approach 1:
The invention extracts the horizontal locking function from complex projection-indentation machining and implements it through the relative displacement of the displaceable tongue and tongue groove. This eliminates the need for additional expensive machining operations while maintaining horizontal locking capability
3Ease of operation
If displaceable tongue is used to eliminate separation forces, then installation ease is improved, but tongue displacement mechanism complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The displaceable tongue is merged with the panel edge structure, and its horizontal displacement function is combined with the locking engagement. This integration eliminates the need for separate complex displacement mechanisms while maintaining installation ease through the natural pushing motion during vertical folding
Data Source
AI summary
Floor panels are shown, which are provided with a mechanical locking system comprising tongue and grooves provided with protrusions and cavities which are displaceable in relation to each other and configured such that the protrusions can obtain a vertically unlocked position where they match the cavities and a vertically locked position where the protrusions overlap each other.