Patent Publication Number: US-6702515-B1

Title: Corner support element for paving slabs

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention concerns a guide- and support-plate for corner parts of paving slabs, especially for the establishing of roof terraces, and in the form of a preferably round and dividable disk element with two rows of upright side support parts intersecting at right-angles for the slab corners. These elements, which are suitable for configuration as injection moulded items of plastic, are to a wide extent used in countries with traditions for making use of flat roof areas as terraces and walking areas, which makes it desirable to pave a roof covering or membrane with proper slabs which can be walked upon, possibly in the laying out of terraces in horizontal fields on roofs with a slight incline. It is here-with an advantage to be able to support these slabs locally at their corner areas, whereby in a simple manner, i.e. by making use of support-plate parts, a height-adjustable support for the adjoining slab corners can be achieved without having to establish any coherent, fixed support for the slabs. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     It is desirable that the relevant disk elements shall be able to be stacked prior to storage and transport, but also for the equalisation of greater differences in height, and it is already known that this can be made possible by configuring each of the elements with holes in the corners, which when an element is lowered down onto an underlying element can accommodate side support parts extending upwards from the underlying element, in that this merely requires an angular turning between the two elements. Moreover, these parts can then form through-going columns in stacked elements, which can hereby stand in a stable manner. 
     With the present invention it has been found that for several reasons it is considerably better to configure the elements in such a way that they are directly stackable with their cruciform rows of upright side support parts lying immediately above one another, so that no thought whatsoever need be given to any mutual angular turning of the elements. 
     The invention is hereby characteristic in that the up-right side support parts of the element are configured in such a manner that they have decreasing breadth upwards, and are provided with an open cavity downwards which can accommodate the tapered top part of a corresponding side support part on an underlying disk element when the two elements are stacked lying closely together. 
     The invention will be of special significance in the cases where work is carried out in the stacking of half or quarter support elements, since these can be stacked as full columns without any mutual turning between the elements. The work will be easier to carry out, and the columns become more stable. 
    
    
     The invention will now be explained in more detail with reference to the drawing, in which 
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a disk element according to the invention. 
     FIG. 2 a  is a bottom plan view of the elements of FIG.  1 . 
     FIG. 2 b  is a side elevation of the element of FIG.  1 . 
     FIG. 3 is a perspective view of a half part of the divided element. 
     FIG. 4 is a sectional view of two stacked elements. 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     The disk element shown is formed by injection moulding with a bottom plate part  2  from which a number of ring-wall parts  4  extend in an upright, concentric manner. In between these wall-parts, along two lines at right-angles to each other, there are arranged diagonal rows of upright side support parts  6 , each of which is configured with a breadth which decreases upwards, but all with the same thickness seen in the circumferential direction. 
     The support parts  6  are configured as arched elements with separate side legs  8  converging upwards and which extend upwards from an underlying break-through  10  in the bottom plate part  2 . These break-through areas are sufficiently open to make it possible for the upright support parts  6  on an underlying disk element to be led up into and be accommodated in the space between the two opposing legs  8  of the upper disk element when these elements are stacked closely together, cf. FIG.  4 . 
     Work can herewith be carried out with a possibility of bringing about a kind of snap-lock effect between the adjoining support parts  6 , so that the stacked-together elements can to some degree be self-retaining in against one another, which in practice is a considerable advantage. 
     The upwardly-extending height of the support parts  6  can expediently be the same as or slightly less than the height of the element  2 , 4 , so that any number of stacked-together elements can conclude in a plane manner both at the top and the bottom. The desired side guiding effect and the associated distance-providing effect between the relevant slabs will be fully sufficient with a height of e.g. 15 mm, even though the slabs are appreciably thicker. 
     As mentioned, it is desirable that the disk elements are easy to divide along the rows of support projections  6 , namely so that these elements can be divided into half or quarter parts as desired for the supporting of a straight outer edge or respectively an outer corner of the slab paving, without it being necessary to produce special elements for these purposes. In light of this, the disk element according to the invention is built up in such a manner that each quarter segment in between the ring-walls  4  is concluded with a transverse wall part  12  at the one end, and with the upright, inverted V-shaped support part  6  at the opposite end. These support parts extend from extensions  14  of the ring-walls  4  out over the associated break-through areas  10 , and they lie at a short distance from the transverse end wall  12  of the adjoining ring segment. In each radial row of support parts, every second support part will thus belong to the one quarter segment, while the remaining support parts will belong to the adjoining quarter segment. 
     The quarter segments thus immediately appear to be mutually completely separate, but by injection moulding of whole items the segments are formed at single places along the relevant part areas with narrow connection bridges  16  which hold the segments together in a fully stable manner, but which however allows a relatively easy breaking-over along the part areas for the formation of half and quarter disk segments. 
     It will be a distinctive feature of the invention that also such half and quarter disk elements allow themselves to stacked directly on top of one another in a self-retaining manner. 
     The upright support parts shall not necessarily be closed at the top.