US3385003A - Metal building tube for mounting hinges - Google Patents

Description

y 28, 1968 H L. OWEN 3,385,003

METAL BUILDING TUBE FOR MOUNTING HINGES Filed March 21, 1966 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 44 7////// ///T//// /4 Z 5a w 2 m; J

INVENTOR. HARRY L. OWEN MZW ATTORNEY May 28, 1968 H. 1.. OWEN METAL BUILDING TUBE FOR MOUNTING HINGES- 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed March 21, 1966 I I/ /l 76 74 7g l 22 Z 2a INVENTOR. HARRY OWEN g ind? W ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,385,003 METAL BUILDING TUBE FOR MOUNTING HINGES Harry L. Owen, 907 Cedar St., Niles, Mich. 49120 Filed Mar. 21, 1966, Ser. No. 536,102 8 Claims. (Cl. 49-504) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A metal building member having a slot in one wall through which a door hinge extends. Said door hinge is secured in face engagement with an adjacent angularly extendin wall of said building member. The internal corner of said building member at the junction of the slotted wall and the adjacent wall is provided with a fillet through which the hinge passes.

This invention relates to a metal building tube for use in mounting hinges. More particularly, the invention relates to tube structures that are commonly used in door frames and in low rise curtain wall constructions, and are commonly formed of aluminum or aluminum alloys.

It is common to mount the plate of a door hinge upon such door frame tubing by forming a slot in thetubing through which the hinge plate may be passed for face engagement with the inner surface of a wall of the tubing to which the hinge plate is to be secured. The metal tubing so provided is commonly formed of an aluminum alloy and is of a wall thickness in the order of .125 inch and is of extruded character. It has been found that tubing of this character is subject to tear or fracture at or adjacent to the slit through which the hinge plate passes and caused when the door is violently swung by strong winds. Heretofore it has been necessary to apply a reinforcement plate over the butt or hinge plate of the hinge in order to successfully resist a tearing action, but the use of such reinforcement plates is objectionable because of the expense of the plates and the cost of installation resulting from use of the plates.

This invention pertains to metal building tubes for mounting hinges wherein a door blade is mounted upon a tubular metal building member by means of a hinge having a hinge plate extending through a slot in one wall of said member and secured inface engagement with an adjacent angularly extending wall of said tubular member. Said tubular member has an integral internal longitudinal fillet at the junction between the slotted wall and the wall to which the hinge plate is secured. The said fillet is interrupted by said slot and is of a thickness at least substantially equal to the thickness of the hinge plate.

It is the primary object of this invention to produce :a tubular door frame construction which is of novel crosssectional configuration to increase the resistance to tearing of the tube incident to stress applied thereto incident to violent swinging of the door in use.

A further object is to provide a device of this character which is so constructed that it affords great resistance to tearing of a part of the tube adjacent the slot through which the hinge plate extends without increase of the overall cross-sectional area of the tubular member and without increase in the cost of the tubular member.

A further object is to provide a tube of this character having an internal fillet at a corner thereof in which a hinge plate receiving slot is formed in a tubular structure having a conventional wall thickness adjacent said fillet and having reduced wall thickness in other parts of the tube spaced from the area of the tube at which the 3,385,003 Patented May 28, 1968 hinge plate is connected, and so arranged as to avoid sacrifice of strength of the tube in use.

Other objects will be apparent from the following specification.

In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a fragmentary elevational view of a wall having a tubular door frame within which is mounted a door supported by hinges secured to the frame;

FIG. 2 is a transverse sectional view illustrating a tubula-r door frame member encircling and secured to a supporting column of a building and having door blades or panels hinged thereto;

FIG. 3 is a sectional view illustrating another embodiment of the invention wherein a frame tube of rectangular section encircles a column and has a door blade hinged thereto at an edge thereof;

FIG. 4 is a sectional view of a tube of rectangular cross-section encircling a column and having a door blade hinged thereto and extending therefrom at a different angle than the door blade extends in FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a sectional view taken on line 5-5 of FIG. 1, and illustrating the mounting of the door supporting hinge upon a unitary extruded metal column;

Referring to the drawings, and particularly to FIGS. 1 and 5, the numeral 10 designates a building wall having a door opening therein outlined by a door frame 12 formed of tubular-metal members, such as extruded continuous or integral'aluminum alloy metal tubes, said door frame members being suitably interconnected in any manner well understood in the art and secured to the building wall. A door blade or panel 14 of any suitable construction fits in the door frame and is supported by means of hinges 16.

In the construction illustrated in FIG. 5, the tubular part used in the door frame has a pair of wide walls 18 and a pair of narrow walls 20 which are formed integrally as by extrusion. Internal fillets 22 are formed integrally at one or more corners or intersections of a wide wall 18 and a narrow wall 20. As here shown two fillets are shown which are disposed diagonally relative to each other. The fillets 22 are preferably defined by an inner surface 24 which is substantially equiangularly disposed relative to the inner surfaces of the adjacent walls 18 and 20. The major wall thickness at the fillet is preferably substantially twice the wall thickness of the wall portions 18 adjacent thereto.

Conventional rectangular door frame tubes of this character are commonly of an external cross-sectional dimension of one and three-quarter inches by four inches, and of a wall thickness of .125 inch throughout. In the present construction, wherein the plates 26 of the hinges 16 are of a thickness in the order of one-eighth inch and are adapted for face engagement with a wall v18 for approximately one and one-quarter inches, I propose to form the portion of the wall v18 adjacent to the fillet at 28, i.e., the port-ion to which the hinge plate 26 is secured, of a thickness in the order of .125 inch. The remaining portion 30 of each wall 18 is of tapered thickness, reaching a thickness of .1 inch at the portion thereof joining the unfilleted opposite end wall 20. Each of the end walls 20 is preferably of a thickness of .1 inch throughout the major part of its extent, or at least one-half of the crosssect-ional dimension thereof. If desired the cross-sectional thickness from the mid-point of each wall 20 toward the adjacent fillet 24 may progressively increase to a thickness not greater than .125 inch. By this arrangement the increase in the cross-sectional area of the tube wall occurring at the two fillets 22 is compensated by the reduction in thickness of the tapered wall portion 30 of the wall 18 clear of the hinge plates and the reduced thickness of the transverse walls '20. Thus I have designed a tube whose actual cross-sectional area is 1.241 square inches. This is to be compared with the actual crosssectional area of a conventional non-filleted tube of a uniform wall thickness of .125 inch whose area equals 1.375 square inches. Thus the actual cross-sectional area of the tube, as shown in FIG. 5, is 90.5% of the crosssectional area of a conventional tube of the same external dimension and not provided with the fillets.

The fillets provide reinforcing at the points at which slots are formed in the tube for passage of a hinge plate into the tube into face engagement with part 28 of wall 18 for anchorage thereto by securing screws 32. The increased thickness of the tube at the fillets at the opposite ends of the hinge plate receiving slot reinforce and rigidify the tube at the point at which tearing stress is likely to be applied thereto incident to violent opening or closing of a door in use. This reinforcement is so located that tearing of the tube under adverse usage conditions is resisted effectively and damage to the tube is avoided despite the fact that the overall cross-sectional area of all walls of the tube and the resultant weight of the tube is less than the weight of a conventional tube of uniform wall thickness. Thus, since the cost of a tube is usually proportional to the amount of the metal used therein, my improved construction permits a reduced cost of tubing while at the same time increasing the strength thereof and its resistance to tear. The tapering of the wall thickness in the parts 30 of the walls 18 avoids an abrupt break in the side walls of the tube spaced from the points at which the hinge plates are secured and thus avoids a pronounced bend at the edge of the hinge plate.

It will be understood that the construction of FIG. 5 is illustrative and pertains to a construction of tube wherein the hinge plate is to be secured to one of the wide walls 18 of the tube. In instances where the tube is to have universal usage, that is, wherein a hinge plate is to be secured to either a wide wall 18 or a narrow wall 20 of the tube, it may be desirable to provide fillets at all four corners of the tube and also to provide a tube whose walls are of uniform thickness throughout. In such constructions added weight and cost are involved as compared to conventional tubes, but the use of such tubes is less expensive than standard tubes to which separate reinforcing plates are secured in order to overcome the danger of tearing of the tube incident to violent operation of a door.

Another embodiment of the invention is illustrated in FIG. 2 and utilizes multiple section tube attached to and encompassing a supporting column 40. The multiple section tube is best composed of a plate or member 42 provided with a pair of marginal perpendicular flanges 44, each of which is of tapered cross-section defined by inner diverging faces 46 interrupted by a longitudinal locking shoulder 48. The member 42 is preferably secured to the supporting column at longitudinally spaced points by screws or other securing members 50 located mid-width of the member 42. The width of the member 42 is slightly greater than the diameter or other dimension of the supporting column 40.

The sectional tubular member is completed by a U- shaped part 52 having a web 54 of the same width as the web 42 and a pair of legs 56, each of a width slightly greater than the adjacent dimension of the column 40. The legs 56 terminate in longitudinal tapered latch portions 58 complementary to the parts 46, 48 of the flanges 44 of the plate 42 and engaging and interlocking therewith, as illustrated in FIG. 2, with a snap lock action. The parts 42 and 52, when assembled, provide a tube enclosing the column 40 with sufiicient clearance to permit required relative adjustment for the purpose of plumbing or levelling the tube in a building structure.

The U-shaped member 52 is provided with an internal fillet 60 extending longitudinally at each interior corner thereof at the junctions between web 54 and the respective legs 56. The fillets will preferably be of substantially the same dimensions as previously described, that is, of a dimension equal to or greater than the thickness of one of the hinge plates 25 of a hinge 16 employed to mount a door blade or panel 14.

In the preferred embodiment the thickness of the parts of the web 54 and legs 56 of the member 52 adjacent to the fillets 60, that is, the parts at which the hinge plates are adapted to be secured, may be greater than at other parts. Thus such parts for a width of 1% to 1 /2 inches from the filleted corners may be of a thickness of .125 inch, and the remainder of said parts may taper to a thickness in the order of .1 inch. Similarly, the plate 42 may be of a thickness of .1 inch. By such selection of thicknesses the total weight of the assembled tube may be reduced to approximately 85% of the weight of a conventional multiple part tube of the same dimensions having a uniform wall thickness of .125 inch as is now common. The device also maintains all of the advantages of snap interlock and rapid assembly which characterize conventional multiple section tubes and provide adequate strength for mounting of doors which can extend in any direction from the tube with the hinge plate thereof secured either to the web 54 or to a leg 56 as respectively illustrated in FIG. 2. It will be understood that the hinge plates will pass through slots in themember 52 and are so positioned as to extend through the reinforcing fillet 60 and permit face engagement of binge plate 26 with the inner face of one of the parts 54 or 56 of the tube.

It will be seen that the FIG. 2 construction provides a strong construction increasing the resistance thereof to tear compared to that experienced with conventional tubes, and at the same time permitting reduction of the amount of metal used and reduction of the cost of the tubing while retaining ease of installation characterizing conventional constructions.

Another embodiment of the invention is illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4, wherein a sectional rectangular tubular member is assembled over a structural member 70,, such as a metal channel. The tubular unit is preferably formed from a U-shaped part 72 having a narrow web 74 and comparatively wide legs 76, one of which is secured to the structural member 70 as by screws or bolts (not shown). The legs 76 are of a width greater than the width of the structural member 70 and project from opposite sides of said structural member, as shown. Inner fillets 78 extend longitudinally at the corners between the web 74 and the legs 76. The free margins 80 of the legs constitute longitudinal tapered latch parts interrupted by a longitudinal shoulder and engageable by complementary tapered shouldered latch flanges 82 extending perpendicularly from the opposite margins of tube wall 84. It will be understood that the parts 80 and 82 interengage and interlock by a snap action to effect assembly of the tube parts. The fillets accommodate the formation of slots to receive hinge plates 26 of hinges 16 mounting panels 12. These door blades or panels may extend substantially flush with the tube shown in FIG. 3 or may extend perpendicularly to the wall 76 of the tube as shown in FIG. 4. The same advantages described with reference to the FIG. 2 construction are obtainable with the construction illustrated in FIGS. 3 and 4, including weight saving as a result of thickening of the portions of the channel legs 76 and the web 74 adjacent the fillets 78 with progressive reduction of the thickness of the legs 76 toward their free ends from such portions and also the formation of the wall 84 of comparatively thin material.

While the preferred embodiments of the invention have been illustrated and described, it will be understood that changes in the construction may be made within the scope of the appended claims without departing from the spirit of the invention.

I claim:

1. In a building construction wherein a door blade is mounted upon a tubular metal building member by means of a hinge having a hinge plate extending through a slot in one wall of said member and secured in face engagement with an adjacent angularly extending wall of said tubular member, the improvement comprising an integral internal longitudinal fillet in said tubular member at the junction between the slotted wall and the wall to which said hinge plate is secured, said fillet being interrupted by said slot and being of a thickness at least substantially equal to the thickness of said hinge plate.

2. The construction defined in claim 1, wherein said tubular metal building member constitutes an integral rectangular extruded tube of aluminum alloy having at least two longitudinal fillets therein at diagonally disposed internal corners thereof.

3. The construction defined in claim 1, wherein a longitudinal portion of the wall at which said hinge plate is secured is of maximum thickness adjacent said fillet and is of progressively reduced thickness throughout the remainder thereof.

4. The construction defined in claim 2, wherein a longitudinal portion of at least one wall adjacent each fillet is of maximum thickness and the remainder of said wall is of progressively reduced thickness.

5. The construction defined in claim 1 wherein said tubular metal member encircles a building structural memher, and said tubular member is formed of a pair of sections having marginal snap interlock means, and means securing one of said sections to said building structural member, the major portion of said tubular member having clearance with said building structural member.

6. The construction defined in claim 1, wherein said tubular member encircles a building structural member and has clearance with the major part thereof, said tubular member being formed of a section of U-shape in crosssection having marginal longitudinal latch parts and a section having marginal longitudinal latch parts complementary to and adapted for snap interlock with said first latch parts, and means securing one section of said tubular member to said building structural member.

7. The construction defined in claim 5, wherein said fillet is formed in the other section of said tubular member.

8. The construction defined in claim 6, wherein said fillet is formed in the section of said tubular member which is secured to said building structural member in spaced relation to said building structural member.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,859,798 5/1932 Rix 49-383 XR 2,138,523 11/1938 Habcrstump 4940O XR 2,717,061 9/1955 Katz 49-399 XR 3,196,495 7/1965 Owen 4940O KENNETH DOWNEY, Primary Examiner.

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