EA039369B1 - Process of constructing a self-supporting, anti-seismic, modular structure and self-supporting, anti-seismic, modular structure - Google Patents

Abstract

The novelty and the inventive step of the claimed process for constructing walls start from the overpassing of the concept of self-supporting wall as a solid and compact structure. Created is a "moving wall", a wall that "must" be able to move, so hindering earthquakes and major thrusts. This is got through the elimination of binders and locking joints, the positioning of the elements using the diamond configurations and the creation of grooves and pins which, when in place, never block the elements but, in case of thrusts, leave them free to move aligned with the axes of the wall, along a system of transversal planes created by the surrounding elements in diamond configuration, like cars on their rails, allowing the gravity to reposition each element at the center of the wedge created by the underlying elements at the end of the shakes.

Description

Technical field

The invention relates to the field of construction, as well as to the field of constructor toys, but not only to these areas. From these areas of technology, terminology and exemplary embodiments are used with explanations that do not limit the scope of the invention.

The main purpose of the present invention is to provide a kit for the construction of drywalls that are resistant to earthquakes.

Another feature of this invention is the form of the modular element, which makes it possible to easily and inexpensively create any single building element, which makes its production commercially viable.

State of the art

Advantages of dry-mounted self-contained walls assembled in a rhombic configuration, i.e. with an inclination of 45° of the internal surfaces of the elements from the horizontal plane, have already been disclosed in previous patents, mainly in US patent 3238680 and US patent 4429506, which illustrate its advantages in detail.

The purpose of the inventions described in these patents is to facilitate and standardize construction processes and reduce the problems associated with them. The solutions disclosed in these patents do not directly address the possibility of optimizing the resistance of products to earthquakes that could jeopardize their use, and in fact they indirectly provide this problem with a standard solution by blocking the elements after they are installed or by grouting the elements (US 3238680) or by creating convex contour joints, formed in such a way as to completely block any movement (US 4429506).

An attempt to solve technical problems was made by the author of this application in the Italian application No. 102017000002158, which was rejected due to lack of novelty. This application identifies a possible novelty due to the diamond-shaped connection in comparison with other type of connections that allow elements to move.

But the above solution remains a guess, not providing any specific solution for providing the correct movement and not using pins and grooves on the inner faces of the elements. Such a solution is proposed in this patent application.

In addition, the complexity of all previous solutions lies in the high cost of their industrial production and threatens their general distribution.

The essence of the invention

The main characteristic that determines the novelty and inventiveness of the proposed wall construction method is the rejection of the concept of a self-supporting wall as a solid and compact structure.

This is achieved by eliminating both bonding and fixing connections, positioning the elements using a diamond configuration, and creating slots and pins in the elements of the system, which, when connected together, do not block the elements, but can move freely in the event of shocks or earthquakes, always aligned. along the axis of the walls, along the system of transverse planes created by the surrounding elements with a diamond-shaped configuration.

These transverse planes transform any kind of gravity into an upward transverse thrust, always restrained by gravity and the weight of the structure; at the end of the stresses, gravity will move each element to its original position, at the center of the wedge created by the underlying elements, using the same transverse planes.

This act of moving the elements along the transverse planes back to their original position using gravity is part of the inventive step and is not possible in horizontal planes and if the elements are locked.

In addition to creating an extremely ergonomic base element, functional for purpose and reproducible in industry, the novelty and inventiveness of this method of construction lies in the identification, definition and use of four conditions, all necessary and sufficient to create what can be called a moving wall, a wall, which must be able to move in order to prevent earthquakes and major shocks in a way that is novel and inventive in the method of constructing vertical walls.

These are the following four conditions:

1) the shape of the elements and their correct location;

2) the shape of the grooves and pins, which, avoiding blocking connections, retain their function as a guide;

3) the diamond-shaped configuration of the elements, which allows the creation of wedges and transverse planes and, as a result, the absence of horizontal planes, which are identified as the main technical problem to be avoided in this area of construction.

4) a dry-mounted construction, free from binders and without fixing joints, which prevents the elements from being rigidly connected, keeping them in static balance.

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The technical result of this invention is to obtain a dry-mounted wall, assembled in a diamond-shaped configuration, consisting of modular elements, associated finishing elements, as well as protective strips and supports.

The modular element is a hexagonal parallelepiped having a square or diamond-shaped base; the height of the parallelepiped when positioned will be equal to the thickness of the wall, and its base will be two wall facades.

In the rhombus configuration, the two diagonals of its base are vertical and horizontal. In the final position, the element has two outer parallel faces located vertically, two inner faces lying upwards, and two inner faces lying downwards. On two adjacent inner surfaces, two pins are inserted on each surface, located at the same height and at the same distance from their nearest outer surface, symmetrically (Fig. 1, 2, 7).

Two opposite adjacent inner surfaces have two grooves, each of which is located symmetrically in accordance with the pins that are on opposite faces (Fig. 1, 3, 7, 8); starting from the edge common to the two surfaces, these grooves run along the surfaces parallel to the outer surface of the element along its entire length (Fig. 1, 3) or only up to the height of their respective pins (Fig. 7, 8); these slots will always be slightly wider than the thickness of the intended pins, and slightly deeper than their height, so as not to block, stress, push, or deform the pins when the elements are assembled in their final static equilibrium position.

The force of gravity and friction between the elements in a diamond configuration will ensure the stability of the wall; the pins, together with the friction between the opposite sides, will prevent jolts, avoiding the wall being skewed along the axis of the façade.

When assembling the elements, both sides holding the pins must be directed upwards or both downwards and in the same way for all elements of this wall. For technical reasons, the number of pins, their shapes, materials and/or dimensions may vary, provided that the corresponding grooves correspond to the selected pins.

These characteristics make the elements extremely cheap to manufacture: the initial shape to be created is a simple hexagonal block into which you just need to cut grooves and insert pins. Many materials can be used in the preparation of the mold, and for materials such as concrete or dry mixes, the pins can be replaced with metal rods inserted into the mold, with one edge left on the outside to form the pin and the inside being used to reinforce the concrete.

When using materials such as wood, the pins make it possible to reduce losses due to threading and increase the resistance of the connection of the convex contour to shocks and stresses; for wood, as well as for many other materials, a pin inserted into an element, even if they are made of different materials, provides a much higher resistance to stops and stresses than a pin cut from the same piece. The specific materials used for the pins and elements will determine the dimensions, profile, shape, height and thickness of the pins.

In the proposed sample, the modular element is a square base unit with dimensions of 70x70x100 mm (millimeters), excluding pins; its volume is 490 cm ³ (cubic centimeters), excluding changes caused by pins and grooves. The four internal faces have dimensions of 70x100 mm, and 100 mm is both the length of the base of the internal faces, the length of the vertical section and the thickness of the element in the correct position. The two outer faces are 70x70 mm, and their diagonals are 70-2, i.e. 98.9 mm, which can be considered 100 due to material tolerances; therefore, the vertical and horizontal sections in place can be considered as 100x100mm. The volume is almost half a cubic decimeter and the cross section of 100x100 mm facilitates many estimates and rough calculations also for the layman.

Thanks to the diamond configuration, any layer of elements raises the wall by 50 mm, and its thickness of 100 mm can be increased by 50 mm at a time, alternately laying aside whole elements or their halves. The dry construction technique makes all these measures compatible with structures requiring mortars or binders, allowing the use of all finishes, tools and accessories already used in construction.

The square base, the dimensions of the element and the proportions between its parts may vary according to technical or aesthetic needs.

The grooves are 10 mm wide and 20 mm deep; either one is 20 mm from the nearest outer surface and 40 mm from the other groove. The outer part of the pins is 8 mm thick and 19 mm high.

In addition to minimizing manufacturing costs, the shape of these elements, the shape of their connections and the diamond configuration allow for an improvement in the response of the structure to possible earthquakes.

In a compact design, earthquakes release their energy at the weakest points in the structure; in this set of structures, the wall does not prevent shaking as a compact ensemble: on the contrary, any individual element remains free for movement; the huge earthquake forces are distributed in vectors aligned with the shape and arrangement of the elements, and they discharge their forces on any single element, causing them to move.

The dry building technique allows parts to be moved, and the special gap created by the pins and slots makes the elements slide like cars on their rails, uniquely in the direction aligned with the axis of the façade, and move towards the ground thanks to the diamond shape, while the two are parallel the grooves minimize the possibility of swaying and the risk of displacement of individual elements that are forced to slide and rise along the planes created by adjacent elements, turning all deformations into transverse and upward shocks, always restrained by gravity, which at the end of an earthquake will move any individual element in the center of its wedge as part of a rhombus, returning the entire structure to its original position of static equilibrium.

The downward position of the pins and the upward position of the slots help lower the center of the element and help balance it during movements. The weight of the structure, the undulating and intermittent nature of the shaking, and the continuous separation of any individual element from at least one of the adjacent elements will tend to permanently separate and impede the effects of shocks, and the wall will respond to earthquakes in a manner much more like that of gravel landscapes. dissipating forces instead of discharging them against the weakest points of the structure.

Apart from earthquakes, in which forces and shocks are exceptional, the wall will maintain all the characteristics of static balance and stability that a dry-mounted building with a diamond configuration, as already illustrated in the prior art patents, provides.

Finishing elements: being modular elements installed in a diamond-shaped configuration, finishing elements are connecting elements connecting them to the foundation (Fig. 4), side columns (Fig. 5) and to the top of the wall or ceiling (Fig. 6); they are also used to create doors, windows or technical openings for cabling or plumbing; they are obtained by dividing a modular element along one or more of its axes; their use is immediately understandable (figs. 9-11). A cut in two halves along a plane parallel to the outer surface results in two symmetrical pieces that can be used to increase the wall thickness by a factor of 50. These finishing elements may have additional pins along the split edges to allow the fixing of the facing elements (FIG. 5) or to meet technical needs (FIGS. 9-11).

Retaining elements are polygonal columns to which other elements can be attached or tilted: unlike the rest of the structure, they can be attached to the ground or to the foundation; one or more side faces have convex or concave connections, coinciding with the connections of the elements used. In the case of grooves, they will move vertically, and they are designed to convert transverse thrusts into vertical ones, which allows the finishing elements to make a vertical sliding movement that lifts the element, avoiding the possibility of colliding with other elements by lifting its adjacent elements. U-shaped pins can be used as closing elements, with or without connections; these blocks have already been illustrated and are part of the prior art.

It is possible to assume many variants of modular elements, such as two different elements, one with all external connections and one with all internal connections, for alternate laying, or other variants with more than two different elements having different shapes, creating different configurations with the same views. joints, grooves and pins and without horizontal planes, always allowing any element to move while remaining within the scope of the invention.

Sizes, colours, type of material used, whether there is an internal void or compactness or whether there are any holes, cavities or ducts, whether it is uniform or stratified or composed of one or more materials, these are all non-essential details of the implementation of the method in which the application is filed and may vary depending on needs or requests.

All elements used in the work must have dimensions, proportions, surfaces, joints, contact surfaces and profiles that must be compatible and correspond to the modular element used; therefore, for any modular element A, it will be necessary to create a set of type A finishing elements having all the required characteristics compatible with A. In the future, the development of this building technology will multiply the possible variety of elements designed to solve specific problems or aesthetic needs, always remaining within the scope inventions.

According to what has been described above, it is obvious that the invention achieves its objectives. The invention may have various variations, all within the scope of the invention and may be included in the appended claims. Any part can be replaced by other technically equivalent elements, and the materials will be diversified according to local needs without leaving the scope of the invention. Even if the elements are described with reference specifically to the appended figures, the figures themselves and the reference numbers used in

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Brief description of the drawings

Additional characteristics, features and advantages of the invention will become apparent after the explanation of the detailed illustration of the figures, representing two main non-exclusive examples of the main element and its associated finishing elements.

fig. 1-3 are perspective views of a modular element having grooves running along the entire top face;

fig. 4-6 are perspective views of the respective finishing elements to be used for the base (FIG. 4), for finishing the side edges (FIG. 5) or the top (FIG. 6) obtained by separating the elements;

fig. 7, 8 are perspective views of a modular element having grooves extending partly along the upper surfaces;

fig. 9 is a perspective view of the beginning of the construction of the wall, starting with the side post and trim elements;

fig. 10 is a perspective view of a column having four faces with vertical slots as female connections;

fig. 11 is a perspective view of the beginning of the construction of the wall, starting with the side post with trim elements and the first row of modular elements.

Claims (2)

1. A kit for assembling a self-supporting earthquake-resistant modular structure in a dry form, including at least one polygonal element in the form of a column, a plurality of modular elements having the shape of a parallelepiped, and a plurality of connecting elements, each element having the form of modular elements obtained by dividing the modular element along one or more of its axes, and all these elements have at least one female element and/or one male element on at least one of their sides, having such a shape that they can be connected with said female/male elements of adjacent modular elements, and moreover, the female elements are in the form of a groove and the male elements are in the form of a pin suitable for free sliding along the groove, and moreover, in the modular and connecting elements, the grooves run parallel to their axes, characterized in that polygonal, modular and connecting elements can be connected and assembled together without a binder or fixing connection, and moreover, these modular and connecting elements can be assembled in static equilibrium with a diamond-shaped configuration, along a plane parallel to the direction of gravity, and any individual modular and connecting element, in its place, is connected to a gap with its adjacent element and also remains free to move, and all surfaces of the elements are in contact with the surfaces of other modular or connecting elements, defining mutual, non-horizontal sliding planes transverse to the direction of gravity. 2. Self-supporting, earthquake-resistant, dry-built modular structure using the kit of claim 1.