The invention concerns a roll-up door which comprises a number of mutually hinged, mainly horizontally mounted, preferably elongated sections, a number of rollers mounted along each side of the door, and a guide rail mounted on each side of the door, and which is used for accommodatong the respective rollers and having a mainly U-shaped cross-section with a web and two flaps.

When the door of a door opening of a building is lifted or lowered, it is guided by the rollers running inside- the guide rails, each having a vertical section extending upwards at the door frame and a horizontal section extending inwards into the building, and also a curved section forming the transition between the vertical and horizontal sections.

More specifically, the rollers are runnning on one of the flaps of the respective guide rails which, for this purpose, can have a cross-sectional shape adapted to the rim of the the rollers. The distance between the flaps will, in practice, be greater than the thickness of a finger, and a person who is at the door could therefore easily get his fingers in between the flaps. If this happens while the door is moving, there is a risk that the fingers will be seriously injured by being run over by the rollers and being cut by one of the free edges of the guide rail.

The object of the invention is to provide a roll-up door of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph by means of which this risk is eliminated.

The novel and unique features according to the invention, whereby this is achieved, is the fact that, at each roller, a finger-barrier is mounted which, at a relatively short

distance, extends to or past at least one of the longitudinal, free edges of the guide rail. A finger grasping behind this edge when the door is moving, is now refused by the finger-barrier before the finger is caught between the flap and the roller. To ensure this advantageous' effect, the spacing of the finger-barrier and the free edges of the guide rail must be smaller than the thickness of a finger, and in praxis maximum 8 mm.

Usually, each roller is mounted at the end of a shaft which, by means of a roller support, is attached to the door. In these cases, the finger-barrier is advantageously attached to this shaft.

The finger-barrier can be a plate covering the guide rail in a sufficiently large area at the associated roller, but at a preferred embodiment, it is a disc mounted co-axially with the roller and having diameter whihc is at least as large as the diameter of the roller.

At a preferred embodiment, the disc has a hub which, with a force fit, is mounted upon the shaft and secured axially between the roller and a lock ring.

Furthermore, the disc can appropriately be made of plastic and have a bead along the periphery to ensure that the disc itself is not able to cut into a finger or a hand.

The invention will be explained in greater details below with references to the drawings, in which

fig. 1 is a perspective view, seen from the inside of a building, of a roll-up door according to the invention,

fig. 2 is a perspective view, in fragments at a larger scale, of a roller running in a guide rail, and

fig. 3 is a lateral view partially in section of the same roller.

Fig. 1 shows a roll-up door 1 seen from within a building 2. The door serves to close a door opening 3 with door frames 4, and is constructed of sections 5 which are hinged together by middle hinges 6 and side hinges 7.

The door can be lifted or lowered for opening and closing the door opening, respectively. During this, the door is guided by .guide rails 8 which each are extending upwards at the respective door frame with a small inclination inwards into the building for in a curvature to transit into a section extending horizontally or slantingly into the building.

Fig. 2 and 3 show more explicitly that the door is guided by means of rollers 9 running inside the guide rails 8. For this purpose, the guide rails, seen in cross section, are mainly shaped as U's which are placed with the openings facing each other. Each guide rail has a web 10, an outer flap 11 and an inner flap 12. When the door is lifted or lowered, the roller 9 runs on the inner flap 12. For in all situations to ensure the stability of the door opening, the inner flap 12 is, in this case, seen in cross-section, shaped with a curvature having the same or a slightly larger radius of curvature as the rim 13 of the roller 9.

The rim 13 of the roller 9 is made of e.g. plastic and mounted at the end of a shaft 14 by means of a ball bearing 15 which has an inner race 16 which is pressed against a shoulder 17 on a journal 18 at the end of the shaft 14. Subsequently, the inner race 16 is secured to the journal 18 by deforming the material 19 at the terminal surface of the journal.

The shaft 14 is fixed upon a roller support 20 having slits 21 for adjusting the location of the shaft on the roller support which itself is mounted on a side hinge 7, known per se.

On the shaft 14, there is furthermore mounted a disc 22 which for example can be made of plastic. The disc has a hub 23 which is mounted with a force fit, such that it is abutting the inner race 16 on a shaft section 24 which has a slightly larger diameter than the journal 18. The shoulder 17 forms the transition between the shaft section 24 and the journal 18. A locking ring 25 ensures, together with the inner race 16, the axial position of the disc 22 on the shaft. To facilitate the mounting of the disc 22, the locking ring 25 can preferably be of the type which has inwards turned teeth for automatically locking the ring when it is pushed across a smooth shaft section.

As will appear from the above explanation, the disc 22 is mounted co-axially with the roller 9. Furthermore, the disc has a diameter so large that it, in the cross-section shown in fig. 3, extends beyond as well the free edge 27 of the outer flap 11 as the free edge 28 of the inner flap 12. The distance of the disc to these edges is at least so small that it is not possible to get a finger in between the disc and the edges. The distance is thus typically smaller than 8 mm.

The disc 22 therefore makes up a finger-barrier which efficiently prevents a person who is at the door while this is moving, from getting his fingers caught between the stationary guide rail and the running roller and/or the shaft of said roller.

As previously mentioned, the disc can be made of plastic. Even if the plastic has a relatively small thickness, it must have sufficiently great strength and rigidity to, with certainty, be able to reject fingers which a person might unintentionally

have put in between the flaps while the door is being lifted or lowered.

As shown in fig. 3, the disc 22 has, along the periphery, a bead 26 which ensures that the disc itself does not cut a finger. Furthermore, the bead 26 serves to strengthen the edge.

The invention is shown in the drawings and described above as a disc-shaped finger-barrier. However, this only serves as an example, as many other embodiments are possible within the scope of the invention.

Thus, the finger-barrier can also be shaped as a rectangular plate and be mounted upon the roller shaft in any appropriate way.

The disc or the plate do not necessarily have to extend perpendicular to the axis of the roller, but can advantageously have sections which are more or less folded around the outer sides of the flaps. At the same time, other sections can be folded in over the roller at both sides via the opening of the guide rail. These folded sections enhance the safety provided by the finger-barrier according to the invention from getting the fingers caught between the guide rail and the roller with its associated shaft, when the door is moving.