Wind-resistant overhead closure
OwnerSebastian Magroinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A wind-resistant overhead door includes substantially vertical windbars mounted on the side portions of the frame, and windlocks or endlocks on the lateral edge portions of the intermediate and bottommost of endmost slats of the closure, such as a rolling door. By providing a predetermined clearance between the windbars and windlocks by substantially eliminating such clearance with respect to the lowermost or endmost slat or bar, maximum flexing of the slats in response to wind loads and positive and negative pressures acting on the closures can be substantially eliminated to thereby control and substantially eliminate undesired deflections or gaps about the periphery of the closure. This minimizes the exposure to which glass elements behind the closures are exposes to wind loads, and pressures which can damage the same.
Claims20
A wind-resistant overhead closure for a generally rectangular opening in a wall of a building structure, comprising a frame defining a plane and dimensioned to conform to the wall opening, said frame including an upper horizontal portion and spaced vertical side portions;
- a rolling planar member having an endmost closure portion which is variably movable from said upper horizontal portion and a plurality of intermediate closure portions between said upper horizontal portion and said endmost closure portion, said closure portions extending between said side portions and having lateral edge portions which cooperate with and are guided by said frame side portions;
- rolling means generally extending along said upper horizontal portion for rolling up said rolling planar member about an axis generally co-extensive with said upper horizontal portion of said frame to open the overhead closure and for unrolling said rolling member and guiding said lateral edge portions along associated vertical side portions to close the overhead closure, said vertical side portions including first stop means for limiting the lateral movements of said lateral edge portions of said intermediate closure portions beyond a predetermined amount at each side portion towards the other side portion and second stop means for substantially preventing any lateral movements of said lateral edge portions of said endmost closure portion, said first and second stop means controlling the extent of inward movements of said edge portions and thereby limiting the amount of flexing of said intermediate closure portions of said rolling closure due to wind loads on the closure in relation to the plane of said frame and flexing of said endmost closure portion in the direction of said upper horizontal portion of said frame.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.