Splice Joint
OwnerLouis A. Waters, JR., Nick A. Eastmaninventors
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A flexible and movable splice joint between edge aligned adjacent panels incorporates a flexible water sealing gasket and a flexible tensile member, which may be a strap or a cable or chain, the gasket and tensile member allowing the panels to move laterally and rotationally transversely relative to each other without damaging each other by such movements, and is particularly applicable to a plurality of assemblies of so joined panels that form raisable flood barriers to prevent flooding of land and improvements on the land by water rising from an adjacent body of water without permanently blocking a view of the waterscape.
Claims20
An apparatus comprising a plurality of flood barrier assemblies arranged on land proximate a water frontage shoreline, each assembly comprising a plurality of next adjacent structural panels, each panel having a top surface, a bottom surface, a front end, a back end, and lateral sides in non-contacting edge alignment with the next adjacent panel, each said panel residing in a lowered substantially horizontal position recumbent in or on a substantially horizontal support pan situated in or on a surface of said land, said lateral sides when resident in said support pan having an imagined projected intersecting angle to said shoreline, said panels being hingedly rotatable on a substantially horizontal axis of rotation at said back ends of the panels to rotate upwardly from said support pan to a raised position where flood water invading said land will be impounded behind said bottom surfaces of the panels,
- said next adjacent panels mounting orthogonal flanges on lateral sides of the next adjacent panels facing each other, the flanges running the length of the lateral sides, each flange having an upper arm and a lower arm, the lower arm attaching the flange to the lateral side of the panel, the upper arms of the flanges on said lateral sides facing each other being separated by a gap between them both when the panels are substantially horizontally disposed in said lowered position and when the panels are in said raised position, said next adjacent panels being laterally moveable relative to one another by thermal expansion and contraction and transversely moveable relative to one another on said axis of rotation, said next adjacent panels being moveably connected across said gap by a splice joint running the length of said flanges and comprising:
- (a) a flexible water impermeable gasket having a segment spanning said gap and portions distal to said segment secured to said upper arms of said flanges, and,
- (b) a tensile member having end segments secured to said upper arms of said flanges and an intermediate flexible joint segment spanning said gap, said flexible joint segment allowing thermal expansion and contraction lateral movement of said next adjacent panels relative to one another and allowing transverse movement of one said panel relative to the next adjacent panel, said contraction and transverse movements spreading a tension load over said flexible joint segment spanning said gap.
An apparatus comprising a plurality of next adjacent structural panels, each panel having a top surface, a bottom surface, a front end, a back end, and lateral sides in edge alignment with the next adjacent panel, said lateral sides of said next adjacent edge aligned panels each having an orthogonal flange with upper and lower arms, said lower arms being attached to said panel lateral side adjacently below said panel top surface, said upper arms of said flanges defining a first gap between them, said next adjacent panels being moveably connected across said first gap by a splice joint comprising:
- (a) a flexible water impermeable gasket extending from adjacent said lateral side edges of said next adjacent panels and spanning across said first gap, supported by said upper arms of both said flanges, and partially covered by separate first and second spaced apart gasket cover plates atop said gasket, said cover plates defining between them a second gap, and
- (b) a flexible tensile strap extending from adjacent said flanges across said first gap and held under said upper arms of said flanges by separate first and second spaced apart splice plates defining a third gap between them, said first, second and third gaps separating the next adjacent panels, a first set of fasteners fastening said flexible tensile strap between said flanges and said first and second splice plates, and a second set of fasteners spaced from said first set of fasteners fastening together said first and second gasket cover plates, said gasket, said flanges, said flexible tensile strap, and said splice plates, said flexible tensile strap allowing thermal expansion and contraction lateral movement of said next adjacent panels relative to one another and structural loading across said strap from transverse rotational movement of one said panel relative to the next adjacent panel, said contraction and transverse movements spreading a tension load over a section of said flexible tensile member spanning said third gap.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.