SUPPORT STRUCTURES FOR ELECTRICAL OR ELECTRONIC APPARATUS

Abstract: A support structure for units of electrical or electronic apparatus in which a row of vertical pillars support a vertical wall, or a pair of vertical walls one either side of the row of pillars, the walls having an array of apertures by means of which individual units may be hooked onto the wall or walls. The vertical pillars are supported on generally horizontal members which extend parallel to the plane of the wall or walls, and the structure may comprise a plurality of sections secured end to end to form a substantially continuous linear assembly.

Description: The present invention relates to support structures for electrical or electronic apparatus. Rack structures on which apparatus is assembled conventionally take the form of a pair of side pillars or side walls between which are supported a number of shelves one above another, the shelves either carrying apparatus forming complete functional units or acting as supports for smaller units, such as individual printed circuit boards. Rack structures of this kind have conventionally been manufactured in standard heights, widths and depths, with standard vertical intervals between shelves. Design progress in such apparatus as used in, say, telephone exchanges offers increasing facilities with decreasing volume, the volume required to house any particular functional entity or unit being reduced with each successive generation. The inflexibility inherent in rack dimensions chosen for earlier generations of apparatus eventually imposes unacceptable constraints on the disposition of later, more compact, functional units. According to one aspect of the present invention a support structure for an assembly of electrical or electronic apparatus comprises a substantially planar support wall having over at least part of its area an array of apertures, means to mount said support wall in a substantially vertical plane, and means arranged to cooperate with some at least of said apertures to attach units of said electrical or electronic apparatus to said support wall. According to another aspect of the present invention a support structure for a suite or assembly of electrical or electronic apparatus comprises two or more substantially vertically extending column members, base means interconnecting the lower ends of said column members and supporting said column members to lie in a common plane, and two substantially planar support wall members secured to said column members on either side thereof and parallel to said common plane such that said wall members are spaced from one anotber by said column members, at least one of said support wall members having over at least part of its area an array of apertures, and means carrying respective units of said suite of apparatus being arranged to cooperate with at least some of said apertures to attach said units to said support wall member. Each support wall member may comprise a planar sheet of mild steel or stainless steel having a regular array of square or rectangular holes over substantially the whole of its area. Alternatively each support wall member may comprise an orthogonal mesh of steel rods or wires the crossing points of which are welded. The means carrying a unit of said apparatus may comprise a generally rectangular open-fronted box the side walls of which are provided with rearwardly extending hook means by which the unit is attached to the support wall member. Preferably these hook means are arranged to hold the rear face of the box parallel to but spaced from the surface of the support wall member. Alternatively the means carrying a unit of said apparatus may comprise a generally planar carrier which is arranged to be attached to the wall member so as to lie generally parallel to but spaced from the surface of the wall member. An assembly of electrical or electronic apparatus, the assembly comprising a support structure in accordance with the present invention, will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, of which: Figure 1 shows schematically a suite of apparatus, Figures 2 and 3 show respective vertical and horizontal part-sectional#ews of parts of the apparatus shown in Figure 1, Figure 4 shows a part of the apparatus of Figure 1 in greater detail, and Figure 5 shows another part of the apparatus in greater detail. Referring first to Figure 1 individual functional units 1 of a suite of apparatus are arranged to be attached on either side of a double-sided support wall 2, with the interconnections between the units 1, and the external connections to the apparatus, being provided at the front faces of the units 1, that is, at the faces remote from the support wall 2. These interconnections and external connections may be made by way of modular plug and socket connectors (not shown), including for example coaxial cable connectors, optical fibre couplings, power input connectors and multi-pin connectors having, say, 2.5 millimetre pin spacing in a 7 by 3 matrix. The multi-pin connectors may be compatible with reverse DIN connectors (not shown) provided at the rear of a unit 1 for connections between individual circuit boards of the unit 1. A unit 1 may be of a height to house standard single or double height "uro-card" printed circuit boards, and of virtually any reasonable width to accommodate the required number of circuit boards. Referring also to Figures 2 to 4 each unit 1 comprises effectively an open-fronted box having generally planar upper and lower faces 3 and 4, which carry guides (not shown) for the printed circuit boards (not shown) and which may be pierced for ventilation purposes, and end faces 5 and 6 which are provided with rearwardly extending lugs 7 by which the unit is attached to the support wall 2. The rear face of the unit 1, adjacent the support wall 2, may either comprise simply a set of plug and socket connectors (not shown), supported by the faces 3 to 6, for intercomsecting the individual printed circuit boards, or may comprise a back plane member. This back plane member, which ray be of metal but is preferably of an electrically insulating terial such as resin-iinpregnated glass-fibre board, in turn may support the required plug and socket connectors. In the case of an insulating board it may also carry "printed" wiring for interconnecting the plug and socket connectors. The support wall 2 comprises two substantially planar members 8 and 9 which are secured, for example by rivetting, to vertical columns 10. The members 8 a#d 9 may be of mild steel or stainless steel sheet having a. regular array of square holes punched therein, as shown in Figure 5, these holes being at approximately 3 centimetres pitch. Alternatively the members 8 and 9 may be formed as orthogonal arrays of mild steel rods or wires at approximately 3 centimetres pitch, the rods or wires being welded together at their crossing points, as shown in Figure 4. As shown in Figure 3 each of the columns 10 is fabricated from two channel sections rivetted together to provide a hollow, flattened octagonal section, the narrow faces of this octagonal section column being rivetted to the punched-sheet wall members 8 and 9 and the broader faces being rivetted to generally triangular base supports 11. These supports 11 in turn are secured to inverted channel-section members 12 which run longitudinally to interconnect the support members 11 of all the columns 10 in the wall 2. The longitudinal members 12 may be provided with levelling bolts (not shown) and with means (not shown) to secure the structure to the floor. The upper and lower edges of the wall members 8 and 9 may be stiffened by horizontal angle members 13 and 14. The floor 15 mAy either be supported independently of the apparatus supporting structure or may rest on beams (not shown) secured to the base supports 11. tte lugs 7 on the end faces 5 and 6 of the units 1 are arranged to hook over the lower edges of respective holes in the wall members 8 and 9, and it will be appreciated that because of the "open-mesh' nature of the wall members 8 and 9 units 1 can be of virtually any width, without restriction to a multiple of a basic unit width. Above each unit 1, or above a column of units 1, there may be provided an inclined airflow deflector 16 by means of which rising air warmed by heat dissipation within the units 1 may be deflected through the holes in the respective wall member 8 or 9 -into the space between the wall members 8 and 9. This space may act as a chimney for the rising air. If necessary some of the holes in the wall members 8 and 9 may be blanked off to increase the effectiveness of the chimney. Forced ventilation may be provided for individual units 1 by providing ventillating fans within or associated with these units 1, or an extractor fan may be provided (not shown) at the top of the chimney. If greater heat dissipation is to be met inlet and-extractor fans may be provided, or cool air from a service unit may be ducted to individual areas within the units 1 and extracted by way of the deflectors 16 and the chimney. If the ambient temperature is too high the service unit may include a heat exchanger (not shown). The outer or front edges .17 of the air deflectors 16 may be bent upwards to act as cable supports for the inter-unit viking. Inhere any particular co-tponent or set of components is required to dissipate a conciderable amount of hcat this component or set of co:tonants may be mounted on an individual circuit board (not shown which is attached to a wall member 8 or 9 so as to lie generally parallel to that wall member. The smaller functional units 1 of future apparatus will in general not be as deep as existing rack shelves. WEere existing shelf-mounted functional units are to be used in conjunction with wall mounted units as described above sections of the members 8 and 9 may be omitted or removed and the shelf-mounted units (pot shown) mounted directly between columns 10 so as to project on either side of the wall 2. The columns 10 may be spaced at suitable distances from one another to accommodate existing standard-width shelves, or auxiliary columns or part columns (not shown) may be provided to frame the openings in the wall 2. Once the suite of apparatus is installed and commissioned the front faces may be covered by sliding or hinged doors (not shown), which may serve the additional purpose of channelling cooling airflow. It will be appreciated that with the flexibility offered by the apparatus described above the interunit cable spacing can be adjusted to meet requirements simply by positioning the units as required on the wall 2, and units can also be positioned to optimise cable runs. Functional units 1 can be subdivided if necessary to avoid high heat concentrations. At the same time a standardised approach may be used to meet the requirements of a large scale installation such as a main exchange. Since the support wall 2 and the members 11 and 12 support the associated suite of apparatus as a unified assembly the apparatus can be mounted and tested in the factory and then transported to its intended site ready for use. The welded-wire form of support wall renber 8 or 9 ray be particularly useful where large r:uLbers of insulated wires would be threaded through the mesh of the wall 2. The rounded surfaces of the wires ovoid undesirable insulation cutting or stripping. The structure described above is to a great extent amendable to production by numerically controlled stamping machines. The wall 2 may be produced in any required size from, say, the order of a metre square upwards. Referring now in particular to Figure 5 line termination units 23 and exchange termination units 24 may form a major part of a suite of exchange apparatus, particularly as the development of smaller and smaller electronic units 1 proceeds. One or more laterally extending sections of wall, as shown in Figure 5, may therefore be provided to minimise space requirements and to keep inter unit wiring as short as possible. Trays 25 may be provided to route local wiring or "jumpers" between line and exchange termination units 23 and 24 respectively within the section, while a central tray 26 accommodates wiring running between line termination units 23 to main wiring paths at the rear face of the section (not shown). Turning posts 27 may be provided for wires leaving the cable trays 25 and 26. Trays 28 accommodate non-local wiring from exchange termination units 24 to the main wiring paths (not shown). Line cables 29 and exchange cables 30 may either be routed beneath the flooring 15, as shown in Figure 5, or may be routed by way of overhead trays or mesh (not shown) supported on extended column members 10. The edges of the floor 15 may be supported on generally rectangular supports 31 used in place of some of the supports 11.

Claims: Claims 1. A support structure for an assembly of electrical or electronic apparatus comprising a substantially planar support wall having over at least part of its area an array of apertures, means to mount said support wall in a substantially vertical plane, and means arranged to cooperate with some at least of said apertures to attach units of said electrical or electronic apparatus to said support wall. 2. A support structure for a suite or assembly of electrical or electronic apparatus comprising two or more substantially vertically extending column members, base means interconnecting the lower ends of said column members and supporting said column members to lie in a common plane, and two substantially planar support wall members secured to said column members on either side thereof and parallel to said common plane such that said wall members are spaced from one another by said column members, at least one of said support wall members having over at least part of its area an array of apertures, and means carrying respective units of said suite of apparatus being arranged to cooperate with at least some of said apertures to attach said units to said support wall member. 3. A support structure in accordance with Claim 2 wherein each wall member comprises a planar sheet of steel having a regular array of square or rectangular holes over substantially the whole of its area. 3. A support structure in accordance with Claim 2 wherein each wall member comprises an orthogonol mesh of steel rods the crossing points of which are welded. 4. A support structure in accordance with Claim 2 wherein the means carrying a unit of said apparatus comprises a generally rectangular open-fronted box the side walls of which are provided with rearwardly extending hook means by which the unit is attached to the support wall member. 5. A support structure in accordance with Claim 4 wherein the hook means are arranged to hold the rear face of the box parallel to but spaced from the surface of the support wall member. 6. A support structure in accordance with Claim 2 wherein the means carrying a unit of said apparatus comprises a generally planar carrier which is arranged to be attached to the respective support wall member so as to lie generally parallel to but spaced from the surface of said wall member. 7. A support structure in accordance with Claim 2 wherein means attached to said support wall members are arranged to carry interunit wiring.

Inventors: BREEZE, GERALD DAVID, ELLIOTT, DONALD CHARLES
Applicants: THE GENERAL ELECTRIC COMPANY, P.L.C.
Application year: 1982
Main classification: H02B1
IPC codes: H05K7