Guide-Track Panel Coupling for Corner Rotation and Translation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing coupling mechanisms for furniture panels, especially in corner situations and with heavy tabletops, face challenges in efficiently rotating and translating while ensuring robustness and secure attachment, particularly under spatial constraints.
Innovation Solution
A coupling arrangement featuring first and second guide tracks with specific geometric configurations, including straight and circular sections, and guide pins with undercuts, allowing sequential translation, rotation, and secure guidance without hinges or joints, enabling reliable movement and attachment of heavy panels.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If hinge mechanisms and guide rails with rollers are used for rotating and displacing furniture panels, then the panels can move and rotate relative to one another, but the mechanism becomes complicated and spatially difficult, especially in corner situations
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the complex hinge and guide rail mechanisms and replaces them with a simplified coupling arrangement consisting of guide tracks and guide pins. The guide pins directly engage with the guide tracks to provide both rotational and translational movement, eliminating the need for separate hinge and guide rail components.
Solution Approach 2:
Instead of using hinges to enable rotation and separate guide rails for displacement, the patent inverts the approach by using fixed guide tracks with predetermined paths that inherently guide the movement. The guide pins follow these predetermined paths, achieving both rotation and translation through a single integrated mechanism rather than multiple separate mechanisms.
2Adaptability or versatility
If complicated joint mechanisms are used to move and turn partial furniture simultaneously, then multi-directional movement is achieved, but the mechanism becomes spatially difficult, especially in corner situations
Solution Approach 1:
The guide tracks act as intermediaries that mediate between the guide pins and the desired movement paths. The guide tracks are designed with predetermined paths that automatically guide the guide pins through the required sequence of movements (translation along straight sections, rotation along circular sections), eliminating the need for complex control mechanisms and making the system easy to operate in corner situations.
3Strength
If robust mechanisms are used to move heavy tabletops against each other, then heavy panels can be coupled and moved, but the mechanism becomes particularly robust and complex
Solution Approach 1:
The coupling arrangement is segmented into simple, modular components: guide tracks with straight and circular sections, and guide pins. This segmentation allows the mechanism to be both robust (each component is simple and strong) and less complex (the system is built from standardized, interchangeable parts that are easier to manufacture and assemble than monolithic robust mechanisms).
Data Source
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AI summary
A coupling arrangement (10) for two panels (12, 13), which are movable relative to one another, comprises a first and a second guide track (1, 2) and a first and second guide pin (5, 6) for engaging in the guide tracks (1, 2). The first guide track (1) describes a straight course with a starting point (A1) and an end point (E1), and the second guide track (2) describes a first straight section (21) arranged parallel to the first guide track (1), a circular section (22) and a second straight section (23), which runs parallel to the first guide track (1). In a furniture piece (100) having a first panel (12) and a second panel (13), the panels are coupled to one another by means of a coupling arrangement (10) in such a manner that, from a starting position of the panels (12, 13), a guided translation (T1, T2) of the panels (12, 13) one after the other and a guided rotation (R1) of the panels (12, 13) relative to one another can take place.