Nested RV Chambers for Rectangular Shape and Access
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current recreational vehicle designs with slide-out rooms often result in irregular shapes and limited access to essential facilities like bedrooms and bathrooms when in the retracted mode, as they expand to increase living space but compromise on shape and usability.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle body structure featuring two nested chambers, one with essential facilities like a bedroom and bathroom, and another with foldable kitchen space, where the chambers can move laterally relative to each other using a carriage assembly with V-groove channels for independent extension and retraction, maintaining a rectangular shape and access in both modes.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Area of moving object
If slide-out rooms are extended laterally from side walls to increase living space, then the living floor space is increased, but the vehicle shape becomes irregular and access to facilities is limited in retracted mode
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a nested chamber configuration where a first chamber is positioned within a second chamber, both capable of independent extension and retraction. This nested arrangement allows the chambers to maintain a rectangular configuration when retracted while still providing expanded living space when extended, thereby resolving the contradiction between increasing living floor space and maintaining regular vehicle shape.
2Area of moving object
If slide-out rooms are extended to provide additional living space, then living space is increased, but access to bedroom and bathroom facilities is severely limited when retracted
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the vehicle into multiple independent chambers (first chamber with bedroom and bathroom facilities, second chamber with living space and kitchen facilities), each capable of independent extension and retraction. This segmentation allows the facility-containing first chamber to remain accessible and usable even when the second chamber is retracted, thereby maintaining ease of access to facilities while still providing expanded living space when both chambers are extended.
3Adaptability or versatility
If multiple slide-out chambers are added to provide essential facilities and living space, then functionality is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The nested chamber design allows the first chamber to be positioned within the second chamber, sharing common structural elements and support systems. This nesting approach provides the versatility of having multiple independently controllable chambers with different functionalities while reducing overall structural complexity compared to completely separate chamber systems, as the nested configuration allows for shared walls, floors, and support mechanisms.
Data Source
AI summary
A recreational vehicle body structure having expandable body defined by two nesting chambers housed within an enclosed rigid body shell with openings on both side walls for the chambers to extend out. One of the chamber is an enclosed box with interior and exterior entry doors. The other chamber is an open box with only exterior entry door. The recreational vehicle body structure may be part of a towable trailer or a motorized recreational vehicle. In the deployed configuration, the chambers are extended laterally and independently, thereby providing additional living space to the recreational vehicle. In the travel configuration, the chambers are retracted with the enclosed box chamber nesting within the larger open box chamber and the outside walls of the chambers are flush with the body shell sidewalls, thereby reducing the body structure to within the maximum allowable exterior dimensions in length, width, and height for highway bound travel.