Swimming Pool Door Pinion Transmission for Jamming and Finger Trapping
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing swimming pool enclosure doors with folding leaves face issues such as play between hinged edges, finger trapping, and jamming due to uncontrolled rotational movement between panels, particularly when transitioning from a closed to open position.
Innovation Solution
The design incorporates a door system with panels equipped with transmission means by contact, featuring pinions along their entire length to ensure continuous contact and coordinated movement, eliminating gaps and facilitating smooth operation.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If folding leaves are used to control access, then access control is improved, but play between hinged edges causes finger trapping hazards
Solution Approach 1:
A transmission device with pinions and rack teeth is introduced as an intermediary mechanism between the panels. This device mediates the relative movement between adjacent panels, ensuring they move in unison and eliminating gaps that could trap fingers, while still allowing the folding leaf to control access effectively.
Solution Approach 2:
The transmission device provides mechanical feedback between adjacent panels through engaged pinions and rack teeth. When one panel moves, it immediately influences the position of adjacent panels through the transmission mechanism, ensuring synchronized movement and preventing gap formation that could lead to finger trapping.
2Adaptability or versatility
If panels are hinged together for folding movement, then the door can open and close, but uncontrolled rotational movement causes jamming
Solution Approach 1:
The transmission device acts as a mediator between hinged panels, controlling their rotational movement. The pinions engaged with rack teeth ensure that each panel rotates by the same amount, preventing differential movement that would cause jamming while preserving the folding capability.
Solution Approach 2:
The transmission device changes the movement parameter from independent panel rotation to synchronized rotation. By mechanically linking the rotational movement of adjacent panels through pinions and rack teeth, the system ensures uniform angular displacement, eliminating the conditions that lead to jamming.
3Device complexity
If transmission means are only at the ends of uprights, then device complexity is reduced, but movement transmission between panels is insufficient
Solution Approach 1:
The transmission means is segmented into multiple pinion units distributed along the entire length of each upright, rather than a single unit at the end. This segmentation ensures that movement is transmitted continuously and uniformly across all panels, improving reliability while maintaining manageable complexity through modular repetition.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to a door (200) for a swimming pool house (A) which is noteworthy in that the adjacent uprights (320 and 330) of the panels (300) which form the door leaves are equipped with means for transmitting rotational movement by contact in order firstly for the pivoting movement of one panel (300) to cause all the panels (300) to pivot and to fold back or open out all of the leaf (210) and secondly for the movement of one panel (300) with respect to another not to create a space between the panels (300). This door is noteworthy in that the uprights (320 and 330) of the panels are equipped with a driving member in the form of a pinion extending the full length of the upright (320 and 330).