Description.

The invention relates to an ant -crush safety device for automatic doors, specifically but not exclusively intended for lift or elevator doors having transparent doors. In the field of lifts and elevators, safety devices exist for avoiding accidental trapping and crushing of the users during the door-closing operation. These devices are generally based on photocell systems, wherein a break in a light beam reveals the presence of an obstacle between the doors. Pressure sensors can also be used for the above aim, which reveal the presence of a person between the doors and command an inversion of direction in the door movement, and thus the reopening of the doors.

All the above-described devices are activated during the closure phase and serve only to avoid a person's being trapped between the doors. In shopping centres, hotels and office buildings

new architectural trends are leading to the use of lifts having glass or other transparent material doors.

The principal drawback of these kinds of lifts is that a person, especially a child, drawn by the transparency of the doors to look out at the panoramic view, or to examine the lift mechanism, might easily lean with his hands against the glass doors. When the lift reaches the selected floor, the fascinated child may trap his fingers between the door and the jamb, in the interstice created for the door to run through in order to open. Safety devices presently in use are totally incompetent for the avoidance of such emergencies, and as yet no new device has been provided which might help such.

The main aim of the present invention is to obviate the above-described drawbacks and the provide a safety device for automatic doors which excludes the possibility of trapping fingers between an opening door and the jamb associated thereto, and which completely stops the door, with possibility of causing same to invert direction and re-open. The stated aims are fully attained by the device

of the present invention, which is character sed as set out in the accompanying claims, and especially in that it comprises means which are so conformed as to constitute a mobile surface positioned between at least one door and the external frame or jamb, and which, on receiving a pressure or impact, shifts and thereby activates a door stop device, and enables inversion of the movement direction. The mobile surface is preferably realized with a metal or rubber section applied to means for connecting with the jamb and activating a microswitch which stops movement of the door. Further characteristics and advantages of the present invention w ll better emerge from the detailed description that follows, of an embodiment of the invention, illustrated in the form of a non-limiting example in the accompanying drawings, in which: - figure 1 shows the device applied to an automatic door, in a plan view;

- figures 2 and 3 show the device in greater detail, respectively in plan view and in a frontal view; - figure 4 is a further embodiment of the

invention, in the same plan view as figure 2. With reference to the figures, an elevator gate 1 comprises two doors 2, sl deable along the lift threshold on guides 3 and provided with rollers for moving an upper support carriage for each door 2. The gate 1, the doors 2, the guides 3 and the rollers are all of known type.

The gate 1 is herein described in a lift or elevator utilization, but the device of the invention might also be used in any door having automatic opening ability.

In the present embodiment, the door exhibits two doors, opening from the centre of the door in opposite senses in a same direction: the device could also be applied, however, to doors having a plurality of telescopic segments, all opening in the same sense.

In the figures, 5 denotes an external frame or jamb, to which the device of the invention is fixed.

The device comprises a section 11 which is inserted in a chamber 6 situated behind the jamb 5, passing snugly in an interstice 9 between the door 2 and the jamb 5. Preferably there remains about 6mm of play within the interstice 9.

The section 11 is conformed such as to constitute a closing surface 7 for the interstice 9. The closing surface 7 is arranged such as to form a continuous surface together with the jamb 5, and is mobile with respect to said jamb 5 through means 10 for connecting to the jamb 5 comprising a plurality of arms 12 which on one side thereof are pivoted to the section 11 constituting the surface 7 and on the other side thereof are pivoted to the jamb 5, as shown in figures 2 and 3.

The section 11 can be made in various materials, for example in sheet metal (as in figure 2), or in rubber (as in figure 4). An activating element 13 is anchored to the closing surface 7, and activates a microswitch 14 subsequently to a movement of the closing surface 7 following a push or impact on the closing surface 7 by a user. If a person, especially a child, inadvertently leans with a hand on the door 2 in the zone corresponding to the jamb 5 during door 2 opening phase, the small displacement of the closing surface 7 causes an intervention of the microswitch 14, leading to an immediate arrest of

the door 2 movement, and possibly an inversion of movement sense thereof (from opening sense to closing sense), such as to remove any chance of injury to the user. The element 13 with the microswitch 14 constitute a automatic door 2 stop device 8.

In a further embodiment of the invention, illustrated in figure 4, the means for connecting 10 are realized with a shaped sheet of metal 15 fixed to the section 11 and the jamb 5, and conformed such as also to constitute a means for elastically recalling the section 11 if pressed against or bumped. The microswitch 14 can also be positioned in the way illustrated with a broken line in figure 4, and in this case it is activated by the angular movement of the sheet 15.

The activating element 13 can assume various configurations and can normally be in contact with the microswitch 14, from which it detaches and breaks contact at a movement of the closing surface 7, or, as in the illustrated cases, it might be of the type which is normally detached from the microswitch 14.