Geared Hinge Tip Insert Preventing Ligature Anchoring
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Solution Overview
Problem
Traditional door hinges, including knuckle-type and some continuous geared hinges, can become points of support for cords or ligatures, posing a risk, especially in high-use or medical settings where patients may use these to injure themselves.
Innovation Solution
A three-part tip insert for continuous geared hinges that covers the upper portions of the hinge leaves and cap, featuring a tongue for channel engagement and an angled surface to prevent attachment of ligatures, with overhangs that overlap during door movement, ensuring ligatures slide off and are not supported.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If traditional knuckle-type hinges or continuous geared hinges are used, then the hinge provides structural support and allows door rotation, but the hinge creates a point of support for cords or ligatures that can be used to injure themselves
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the harmful function of ligature support by adding a tip insert that covers the upper portions of the hinge leaves and cap. The tip insert removes the ability of the hinge to support ligatures while preserving the hinge's structural support function through the tongue channel engagement mechanism.
Solution Approach 2:
The tip insert acts as an intermediary element between the hinge components and potential ligatures. It provides a physical barrier that prevents ligatures from contacting the hinge surfaces where they could become entangled or supported, while allowing the hinge to continue its normal rotational function.
2Object-affected harmful factors
If the tip insert covers the upper portions of the hinge, then ligatures cannot be hung or supported, but the hinge movement from closed to open position must be maintained
Solution Approach 1:
The tip insert is segmented into multiple portions corresponding to the first leaf, second leaf, and cap of the hinge. Each segment includes a tongue for channel engagement, allowing independent movement of each hinge component while maintaining overall coverage to prevent ligature attachment throughout the door's range of motion.
Solution Approach 2:
The tip insert is designed to move dynamically with the hinge components during door operation. The tongues engage with channels in the hinge leaves and cap, allowing the tip insert to follow the rotational movement from closed to open position while maintaining continuous coverage to prevent ligature entanglement.
Data Source
AI summary
A tip is provided for a geared hinge including a first leaf, a second leaf and a cap enclosing complementary meshed edges of the first and the second leaves, at least one of the first leaf, the second leaf and the cap defining a channel. The tip includes a body with a depending tongue constructed and arranged for complementary engagement in the channel, an angled upper end projecting vertically from the tongue, the upper end including an inclined surface extending from a top portion to the tongue, the inclined surface defining an overhang extending on at least one side of the tongue for covering the channel.