Sliding Door Threshold Locking with Self-Aligning Tongue-and-Groove
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Solution Overview
Problem
Sliding door threshold assemblies in vehicles experience significant play due to misalignment and imperfect adjustments, leading to malfunctioning locks and safety concerns during boarding and alighting.
Innovation Solution
A self-aligning locking device with a tongue-and-groove mechanism and a latch system, including a hook plate and switch sensor, ensures precise alignment and locking of the sliding threshold to the car body, preventing door opening if the threshold is unlocked.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a sliding threshold is mounted on a door panel with suspension and guide constraints, then the door system can accommodate high or low platform boarding implementations, but significant play occurs in both vertical and horizontal directions due to imperfect tightness, parallelism, and synchronization
Solution Approach 1:
A self-aligning locking mechanism is introduced as an intermediary component between the sliding threshold and the door panel. This mechanism includes a locking member with alignment features that automatically compensate for dimensional variations and play in the suspension and guide systems, ensuring stable threshold positioning while maintaining adaptability to different boarding platform configurations
Solution Approach 2:
The locking mechanism is designed to accommodate parameter variations within specified ranges. The alignment features and tolerance specifications allow the system to function correctly despite variations in suspension tightness, guide parallelism, and synchronization, transforming the rigid requirement for perfect alignment into a flexible system that adapts to parameter changes
2Ease of manufacture
If the door panel location does not correspond to the ideal design location due to departures from nominal dimensions and imperfect adjustment, then the door system can be installed with existing variations, but the abutment of the sliding threshold end with the car body doorway post is subject to dimensional play that prevents correct lock operation
Solution Approach 1:
The self-aligning locking mechanism performs preliminary alignment action automatically when the sliding threshold approaches the door post. The alignment features engage first to establish correct positioning, ensuring that subsequent locking operation occurs at the proper location regardless of initial dimensional variations or installation deviations
Solution Approach 2:
The locking mechanism incorporates dynamic alignment capabilities that adapt to the actual position of the door panel. The alignment features can accommodate movement and deformation, allowing the system to transition from a static perfect-alignment requirement to a dynamic system that maintains reliable locking operation despite position variations
3Ease of operation
If the slide mounted in the door panel allows sliding movement of the sliding threshold, then the threshold can move along the sliding axis, but the slide is not perfectly rigid and allows play between the sliding threshold and the door panel
Solution Approach 1:
The self-aligning locking mechanism acts as an intermediary that couples the sliding threshold to the door panel at the locking location. This intermediate connection provides lateral stability and eliminates play between the threshold and panel while preserving the intended sliding movement capability along the sliding axis through the slide mechanism
Data Source
AI summary
A self-aligning locking device for a vehicle sliding door assembly includes a sliding door threshold configured to be mounted on a door panel. The threshold is configured to slide along a sliding axis. The threshold includes a latch and a tongue at a car body-engaging end of the latch. The locking device also includes a groove block and a hook plate both configured to be coupled to the car body. Optionally, the locking device can include a switch sensor. The tongue of the threshold is configured to engage the groove to maintain alignment of the hook plate to mate with the latch to lock the threshold to the car body. The optional switch sensor can be configured to generate a signal indicating a locked state of the hook with the latch responsive to actuation of the switch sensor by the latch.