Retrofittable Vehicle Door Frame Using Rear Wheel-Well Clearance
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing handicap accessible vehicles require intensive and costly modifications to accommodate wheelchair-bound individuals, often away from the vehicle's wheel wells, affecting safety and performance.
Innovation Solution
A vehicle doorway frame that partially protrudes into the rear wheel well, allowing a wheelchair lift assembly to pass through, with minimal modifications to the vehicle's structure, using a door frame with a mounting frame and secondary frame secured within the body-in-white, providing clearance for the wheel and accommodating suspension movement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If a doorway is located away from existing wheel-wells to accommodate wheelchair access, then wheelchair accessibility is improved, but modification intensity and cost increase
Solution Approach 1:
The doorway frame is positioned to partially protrude into the rear wheel-well space, utilizing the third dimension (depth into wheel-well) to resolve the spatial conflict between doorway location and wheel-well integrity. This allows the doorway to be located at the rear end proximate to the wheel-well while maintaining wheel clearance through strategic positioning.
Solution Approach 2:
The frame structure is designed with differentiated regions: a mounting frame fixedly secured within the body-in-white, and a secondary frame extending into the wheel-well. This local differentiation allows the frame to provide structural support where needed while creating opening space for wheelchair access, resolving the contradiction between structural integrity and accessibility.
2Device complexity
If a doorway frame protrudes into the rear wheel-well, then modification intensity is reduced, but wheel clearance may be compromised
Solution Approach 1:
The frame is designed to accommodate axial and radial movement of the wheel within the wheel-well due to suspension movement. This dynamic design allows the frame to maintain wheel clearance under varying operating conditions while still protruding into the wheel-well to reduce modification intensity.
Solution Approach 2:
The frame is divided into a mounting frame portion fixed within the body-in-white and a secondary frame portion extending into the wheel-well. This segmentation allows the secondary frame to be positioned to provide necessary wheel clearance while the mounting frame maintains structural attachment, resolving the conflict between protrusion and wheel clearance.
3Reliability
If a doorway is positioned away from wheel-wells, then vehicle safety and performance are maintained, but accessibility modification cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The frame structure serves multiple functions: it provides structural support as a doorway frame, maintains vehicle safety through proper attachment to the body-in-white, and enables wheelchair accessibility. By making the frame multi-functional, the invention achieves accessibility without compromising safety, thereby reducing overall modification cost.
Solution Approach 2:
The frame acts as an intermediary structure that bridges the body-in-white and the doorway opening. It is fixedly secured to the body-in-white to maintain safety and structural integrity, while simultaneously creating the opening necessary for wheelchair access, thus resolving the contradiction between safety and accessibility cost.
Data Source
AI summary
A vehicle door assembly in a vehicle having a body-in-white, the body-in-white having a rear wheel well, the vehicle door assembly comprising a door frame, the door frame having an aperture therein, the frame extending into the rear wheel-well.