Tile System With Overlapping Ledges For Joint Elimination
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Existing tile arrays face challenges in avoiding straight-through joints, which lead to weight penalties, bulkiness, and increased material costs, especially when covering large areas with hard, brittle materials like ceramics, and traditional solutions like fish scale overlaps or seam sealers are inefficient and prone to failure.
Innovation Solution
Tiles with major and minor surface faces and edge surfaces designed without undercuts, featuring chamfers at corners to allow ledges of one tile to overlap those of abutting tiles, eliminating the need for grout and creating a seamless, flexible array with reduced thickness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If tiles are arranged edge-to-edge in a common plane, then the array achieves a flat, continuous surface, but straight-through joints create gaps that compromise structural integrity and allow heat penetration
Solution Approach 1:
The tile array is segmented into overlapping layers where tiles in one layer extend beyond the joints of adjacent layers. This segmentation prevents straight-through joints by distributing joints across multiple staggered levels, eliminating continuous gaps while maintaining structural integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The solution transitions from a two-dimensional edge-to-edge arrangement to a three-dimensional overlapping structure. Tiles are positioned at different vertical levels with ledges that overlap adjacent tiles, creating a staggered configuration that eliminates straight-through gaps by utilizing the third dimension.
2Reliability
If tiles overlap in the manner of fish scales to avoid straight-through joints, then joint gaps are eliminated, but the array becomes bulkier and heavier with excess material
Solution Approach 1:
Instead of uniform overlapping throughout the entire tile structure, the invention applies overlapping only locally at the edges through ledges. The majority of each tile remains flush with the array surface, minimizing additional material while achieving joint gap elimination at critical locations.
Solution Approach 2:
The tiles overlap partially rather than fully, with only the ledge portions extending beyond the tile faces. This partial overlap is sufficient to eliminate straight-through joints without requiring complete tile stacking, thereby reducing weight and bulk.
3Area of stationary object
If monolithic tiles are used to cover large areas, then the array achieves continuous coverage, but the tiles become fragile and prone to catastrophic failure from crack propagation
Solution Approach 1:
The large coverage area is divided into multiple smaller individual tiles rather than using a single monolithic tile. This segmentation limits crack propagation to individual tile boundaries, preventing catastrophic failure across the entire array while maintaining continuous coverage through the overlapping configuration.
4Reliability
If tiles have undercut edges to prevent straight-through joints, then joint gaps are reduced, but the tiles become impractical to produce economically in high volume
Solution Approach 1:
The ledge structures are pre-formed as integral parts of the tiles during the manufacturing process, eliminating the need for complex secondary operations. This preliminary formation of overlapping edges allows for high-volume production using standard tile manufacturing techniques while achieving joint gap reduction.
Data Source
AI summary
Plural tiles are positioned in a plate-like array. The tiles have edge portions that overlap in such a way that no straight-through joints are present between abutting tiles and such that the thickness of the entire array does not substantially exceed the thickness of a single tile.