Patent Publication Number: US-11384487-B2

Title: Paver and pavement made therefrom

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application is the US-national stage of PCT application PCT/DE2019/000197 filed 23 Jul. 2019 and claiming the priority of German patent application 102018006064.1 itself filed 1 Aug. 2018. 
     The present invention relates to a paver with a bottom face, a top face, and a plurality of side faces, at least one of the side faces being formed with outwardly projecting vertical connector ridges that, during laying of pavement, connect with connector ridges of neighboring pavers to prevent relative displacement. 
     The present invention relates to a paver having variously shaped side faces, for example flat or curved side faces. When laying pavement by assembling a plurality pavers together, the connector ridges of the pavers fit together like gears or racks. In addition, such connector ridges prevent relative shifting of the pavers and therefore an facilitate laying. 
     EP 1 335 069 describes a manufactured paver for making pavement and having connector ridges that are widened at the lower end and taper upward. The wide bases are intended to help the pavers to be laid together. DE 20 2006 013 475 also describes a paver with connector ridges and lower plinth-shaped extensions. Also these base extensions serve as a laying aid and are intended to protect the pavers, when exposed to high traffic loads, from exerting high surface pressures on the connector ridges. 
     EP 1 036 882 describes a manufactured paver for pavement whose side faces carry that maintain side faces of adjacent spacers at a small spacing that is so small that it is the ideal position of the paver with the desired joint width, but, when vibrated, the laid pavement is destroyed. In this way, if the target joint spacing is strictly adhered to, the desired elasticity of the laid pavement is ensured. The spacer should be on the lower areas of connector ridges, so that a shoulder results. 
     In general, it should be noted with such pavers that an effective protection against displacement of the pavers relative to each other with the help of provided connector ridges requires perfect joint filling. In this case, however, the usually narrow joints are filled from the top with joint material with the result that the respective joint does is not properly filled. In order to prevent this, one already has connector ridges like this designed so that they taper steadily from bottom to top, as for example is the case in EP 1 335 069 mentioned above. However, this configuration has the following disadvantage: 
     If the pavement is vibrated by traffic, gravity compacts the joint filling. The inclined side wall of the upwardly tapering connector ridges create perpendicular forces against the inclined side walls, that is forces directed obliquely upward, opposite gravity. The forces tend to loosen the joint filling instead of compressing it and to push it up out of the joint that widens obliquely upward. Anyway, this loosening of the joint material, works against the compaction from vibration. 
     The object of the present invention is to provide a paver of the type described, that ensures particularly good fixation joint filling in the laid pavement. 
     According to the invention, this object is achieved in a paver of the specified type in that the connector ridge has a stepped shape with at least three ridge sections separated by shoulders and projecting less and less from bottom to top. 
     The solution according to the invention therefore is a stepped shape of the connector ridge or the connector ridge sections. This ensures that the widening of the corresponding joint upward is not along a steep angle, but takes place like a staircase, so that forces acting on the paver, in particular forces during vibration of the pavement by traffic, are not applied at an angle upward, but are essentially oriented horizontally. These horizontal forces have no loosening effect urging the joint material upward or reduce such forces, so that a better compression of the joint filling can essentially be assumed. 
     The shoulders preferably extend completely around the connector ridges, from the side face of the paver on one side of the ridge to the side face on the other side, so that there are no corresponding inclined surfaces anywhere on the connector ridges with the disadvantages outlined above. The connector ridge is therefore exposed at at least three vertically extending connector ridge sections one above the other, which are separated from one another by shoulders. 
     The invention provides no restriction on the number of shoulders. For example, apart from the upper end face of the connector ridge, there can be two or three shoulders. It is important that the connector ridge has a step-like gradation, which has the effect that when force is applied to the paver no upwardly inclined, but horizontally acting force components arise that would loosen or eject of the joint filling. 
     The width of the respective shoulders can be the same or different, depending according to the design of the connector ridges, which thereby project more or less. 
     A special embodiment of the invention is characterized in that, from the side face to the outer edge of the connector ridge, the shoulders are inclined downward, in particular at an inclined angle of more than 30°. These sloping shoulders reinforce the effect that the joint filling can slide down, so that compaction is favored. The force components that arise obliquely upward due to the small width of the shoulders can be neglected. 
     The upper end face of the connector ridge is also preferably angled downward toward the lower end of the connector ridge. In particular, it runs preferentially parallel to the inclined step-shaped shoulders. 
     The connector ridge can extend over the entire height of a paver, that is extend the bottom face to the top face. The connector ridge preferably extends however only over part of the height of a paver and preferably ends shortly below the top face. When the joint is filled with joint material, the connector ridge not visible. This looks nice and also ensures more joint filling material can be provided or better rainwater infiltration is achieved. 
     As far as the shape of the connector ridge is concerned, it is designed as a vertical bar is preferably semicircular in horizontal section, with a shape that is semicircular or trapezoidal with an semicircular base being particularly advantageous. These rounded or inclined shapes have the effect that the joint material can slide along the connector ridge and not get caught on it. The corresponding sliding effect is then particularly pronounced when there is a connector ridge section between the step-shaped sections shoulders or several areas with their side parts on the side faces of the cling to the paver, that is gradually pass into this. This is particularly preferred at the lowest connector ridge section. 
     In a special embodiment, the connector ridge has at its outermost edge a vertical elongated depression. Such a recess can, for example, be a groove. The reason for having such a recess or groove is the following: 
     The most important area when packing the joint filling is the small zone between the outermost edge or the apex of the connector ridges and the side face of the corresponding neighboring paver. If the joint in between is not perfectly filled, the empty space or in case of vibrations from traffic the joint material (buffer material) ejected from the upper paver area important for buffering from the buffering zone between neighboring pavers paver surface and the outermost edge or the apex in the case of a rounded design of the connector ridge is pushed away to the side. Packing the joint may not work at all. To prevent this, the invention provides a corresponding vertical recess, in which can collect joint filling and counteract any lateral displacement. Such a central vertical groove at the apex of the connector ridge therefore fixes the joint filling in the most important area for buffering. That way, extra packing is significantly improved in the most critical area. 
     The invention also relates to paving made of an array of pavers of the above described type. 
    
    
     
       The invention is explained below with reference to embodiments shown in the drawing. Therein: 
         FIG. 1  an isometric view of four pavers placed next to one another; 
         FIG. 2  is a large-scale view of a section of a paver of  FIG. 1 ; and 
         FIG. 3  is an enlarged view of part of a connector ridge. 
     
    
    
       FIG. 1  shows four pavers  1 , each of which is rectangular in horizontal section. The pavers  1  each have a bottom face, a top face  2  and four side faces  3 . Each side face is provided with two pairs of connector ridges  4 . Each connector ridge is in the form as a vertical bar projecting outwardly from the respective side face  3  from the bottom face of the respective paver  1  extends upward to just below the top face  2 . In horizontal section each connector ridge  4  has approximately the shape of a trapezoid with a semicircular lateral outer side. 
     The pairs of connector ridges  4  are so spaced from one another that they fit with the pairs of connector ridges of adjacent pavers to form a pavement bond. When the pavers are fitted together, the connector ridges of adjacent pavers fit to form a joint gap extending from the bottom face to the top face and of increasing with going upward. 
     The exact shape of a connector ridge  4  is shown in  FIG. 2 . The connector ridge  4  shown here is stepped and has from bottom to top three distinct connector ridge sections  5 ,  7  and  8  delimited by shoulders  11  and  10 . Each connector ridge has an upper end face  9 . Planes of the shoulders  11 ,  10  and the upper faces  9  extend downward from and are angled outward at more than 30° from the respective side faces of the respective pavers. 
     Due to the stepped formation of each connector ridge  4 , its three stacked connector sections  5 ,  7  and  8  extend vertically. Each connector ridge section  5 ,  7  and  8  therefore projects less and less than the immediately underlying section from the bottom upward on the respective side faces, so that a corresponding joint-gap flare results. A uniform upwardly tapering shape of the connector ridge is therefore avoided. This has the advantage that forces act perpendicular to the surface of the connector ridge, for example when the pavement is vibrated, in the horizontal direction and have no diagonally upward vector effective on the joint filling between adjacent connector ridges and thus there is essentially no loosening of the inserted joint material or ejection of same upward. Compression of the joint material is therefore essentially not reduced. 
     In the embodiment of a connector ridge  4  as shown in  FIG. 2 , the lowest and most projecting connector ridge section  5  is formed so that its side parts  6  extend laterally and merge with those of the adjacent paver. In this way, the joint material is prevented from getting stuck. 
     In the embodiment of a connector ridge  15  as better shown in  FIG. 3  its outermost edge or apex is formed with a recess or groove  14  extending longitudinally of the connector ridge to prevent lateral displacement of joint material between the outermost edge of the connector ridge  15  and the side face of the adjacent paver, for example from vibration, so that the corresponding buffer effect is not lost. The recess or groove  14  holds joint material at this point and also ensures a corresponding buffer effect here. 
     Instead of a depression or groove  14 , a corresponding flattening in the outermost edge of the connector ridge can be provided at this point to inhibit lateral displacement of joint material. Such a flattening is shown in  FIG. 2 .