Flexible Harness Bridge With Sliding Load Spreader
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional harnesses for users at height, such as climbers, experience discomfort due to localized pressure from rigid components, which restricts movement and flexibility, especially when working in confined spaces.
Innovation Solution
A harness design featuring a flexible bridge with a load-spreading assembly that distributes weight across a substantial portion of the body, using a coupling mechanism with tubular bodies or guides to reduce pressure points and allow adjustable loading configurations, maintaining flexibility and comfort without rigid components.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If a rigid or semi-rigid platform seat is provided to provide primary support for user's weight, then comfort is improved, but freedom of movement is restricted and the harness becomes unwieldy in partially-obstructed spaces
Solution Approach 1:
The patent employs flexible webbing materials throughout the harness structure, including the waist belt, leg loops, and critically, the seat portion. This flexible construction allows the harness to conform to the user's body movements while distributing load, eliminating the rigidity that causes discomfort without sacrificing structural integrity or support capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The harness is divided into multiple independent but interconnected components: waist belt, leg loops, and seat portion, all connected through flexible webbing. This segmentation allows each component to move independently, accommodating user movement while maintaining overall structural support and load distribution.
2Ease of operation
If the bridge extends in two lengths from the attachment eye, then the attachment eye can float and pivot along the bridge giving unrestricted movement, but the inward component of force creates localized pressure and discomfort
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a lateral offset between the attachment eye and the bridge connection points, creating a three-dimensional force distribution geometry. This offset causes the load to be distributed laterally across the shoulders and hips rather than concentrating inward, reducing localized pressure while preserving the floating and pivoting movement capability of the attachment eye along the bridge.
3Object-affected harmful factors
If a rigid interconnection is made between forward Ds to improve comfort, then load distribution is improved, but flexibility and freedom of movement are reduced
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of rigid interconnections, the patent uses flexible webbing to connect the forward Ds to the seat portion and to each other. This flexible webbing maintains the load-distributing geometric structure while allowing the necessary flexibility and movement, eliminating localized pressure without sacrificing adaptability.
Data Source
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AI summary
Harnesses for use by a person at height are disclosed. A harness comprises a plurality of flexible harness elements (12), each of which, when in use, encircles part of a user's body. Some or all of the harness elements include a connection piece (20). A bridge (14) extends between a respective connection piece of two or more harness elements, the bridge extending across a part of a user's body. Connection means are connected to the bridge to convey at least part of a user's weight from the harness to a support element. The connection means has coupling means (30) that at least partially surrounds and that can move along the bridge (14) and is capable of loading the bridge at spaced-apart locations. This provides comfort without the need to include any elongate, rigidly-attached component, the presence of which could reduce the flexibility of the harness.