DOOR CLOSURE

The present invention relates to a door closure and especially to a door closure incorporated within a door hinge.

Conventional door closure assemblies comprise two metallic arms, bolted to the door frame and a top part of the door respectively, the arms being attached via a hinge arrangement and being biased together by a spring.

Such overhead assemblies are large and cumbersome and tend generally not to be appealing to the eye. Moreover, the arms, the ends of which can be quite sharp, often catch on items and/or persons travelling through the doorway and, in extreme cases, can be used as a ledge to tie a rope to for a suicide attempt in for example, a prison or similar institution.

The present invention seeks to alleviate the aforementioned disadvantages by providing a door closure mechanism that is built into a hinge of a door.

Accordingly, in one aspect there is provided a closure assembly for a door, the closure assembly comprising first and second attachment members for attachment to a side edge of a door and a side edge of a door frame respectively, means to hingedly connect the members together, and means to adjust the tension of the hinge connection in situ.

Preferably, the adjustment means comprises a spring, the tension of which is adjustable.

CONϊTEMAΉON COPY

Preferably, the spring is located within a cylindrical housing forming part of the assembly and adjustment of the spring is enacted by rotation of a bearing extending into the cylindrical housing.

Preferably still, one end of the bearing comprises means to engage with the spring to rotate the spring as the bearing is rotated.

Preferably the closure assembly further comprises means to retain the hinge connection at a tension to which it has been adjusted.

One embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which :

Figure 1 is a side perspective view of a door closure assembly constructed in accordance with the present invention;

Figure 2 is a top plan view of the door closure of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a side view of a locking component of the door closure assembly of Figures 1 and 2 and;

Figure 4 is a top plan view of the door closure of Figures 1 and 2 with the locking component of Figure 3 removed.

Referring to the Figure 1, a door closure assembly 2 comprises a door hinge structure, which comprises two main components. The first component 4 comprises cylindrical housing 6 having a central bore and a flange 8 extending radially from the housing 4. The flange 8 has a plurality of apertures 10 through which screws can be located to attach the flange 8, and hence the component 4, to a door (not shown).

The second component 12 comprises two spaced apart cylindrical sections 14, 16, which, in use, are located at either end of the first cylindrical housing 6 of the first component 4. A flange 18 extents radially from and between, the two cylindrical sections 14, 16. The flange 18 also has apertures 10 through which screws can be located to attach the flange 18, and hence the second component 12 to a door frame

As can be seen best from Figures 2 and 4, the cylindrical sections 14, 16 of the second component 12 and the cylindrical housing 6 of the first component 4 have each a central bore 20 that, when the cylindrical housing 6 and sections 14, 16 are aligned, extends through the entire hinge structure.

The cylindrical housing 6 has a spring 22, or spring-like member located within its central bore 20. Each end of the spring 22 is formed with an inwardly divergent arm 24.

The cylinder housing 6 and cylindrical sections 14, 16 are connected to each other by means of bearings 26 which extend into the central bores 20 of top and bottom cylindrical sections 14, 16 respectively.

The bearing 26 is shown in Figure 3. The bearing 26 is of generally cylindrical structure (in order for it to be received within the central bore 20 of the cylinder sections 14, 16). The bearing 26 comprises three sections. The first upper section 28, which has an outer diameter of less that the inner diameter of the cylindrical sections 14, 16 of the second component hinge part 4, has four equi-spaced apertures 30 extended through its side wall. A recess 32, suitable for receiving a standard size alien key is formed in the top surface of the upper section 28.

The upper section 28 extends to a middle section 34 of slightly reduced diameter and then to a lower section which comprises two semicircular space apart flange members 36.

During construction, the two hinge components 4, 12 are placed together so that the cylindrical housing 6 and the cylindrical sections 14, 16 are aligned. A bearing 26 is pushed into each open end of the cylindrical sections 14, 16. The bearing extends into the central bore 20 of the hinge structure such that the end arm 24 of the spring 22 within the cylinder housing 6 is located between the flange members 34 of the respective bearing 26. Once the bearings 26 are located within each end, the two component hinge parts 4, 12 are held firmly together whilst still allowing rotational movement between the two components 4, 12.

The tension of the hinge structure can be easily adjusted. To adjust the tension, one of the bearings 26 is rotated using a standard alien key for location within the recess 32 of the bearing 26. Alternatively the recess 32 could be formed as a slot and a conventional screwdriver could be used to rotate the bearing 26.

Rotation of the bearing 26 causes rotation of the spring 22 within the central core 20 of the cylindrical housing 6 to adjust the tension of the spring 22 and hence the overall hinge structure. Once the required tension is set to the desired strength, the appropriate aperture 30 is aligned with an aperture 38 formed in the side wall of the respective cylindrical section 14, 16 and the bearing is retained in position by extending a pin member (not shown) through the apertures 30, 38.

To adjust the tension of the spring 22, the pin member is simply disengaged from the apertures 30, 38 to allow rotation of the bearing 26 thereby to reduce or increase the tension of the spring 22.

The apertures 30 formed in the bearing 26 may, for example, located in such a way to coincide with spring tensions that would ensure a door fitted with the closure assembly closes only partly, only to the latch or fully closed (with extra force if part of the door is bowed) when pressure holding the door open is released

The above described embodiments are given by way of example only, and the skilled reader will naturally appreciate that many variations could be made thereto without departing from the scope of the present invention.