U.S. patent number 3,780,388 [Application Number 05/219,329] was granted by the patent office on 1973-12-25 for inflatable air mattresses and like articles.
This patent grant is currently assigned to Estabbissements Hutchinson Compagnie Nationale Du Caoutchouc. Invention is credited to Basile Fetissoff, Andre G. Thomas.
United States Patent |
3,780,388 |
Thomas , et al. |
December 25, 1973 |
INFLATABLE AIR MATTRESSES AND LIKE ARTICLES
Abstract
An air mattress has an upper and a lower member joined together
at edge portions to form a lip. The width of the lower member is
greater than that of the lower member so that the lip lies, when
the mattress is inflated at the level of the upper member.
Inventors: |
Thomas; Andre G.
(Briant-Amilly, FR), Fetissoff; Basile (Pannes,
FR) |
Assignee: |
Estabbissements Hutchinson
Compagnie Nationale Du Caoutchouc (Paris, FR)
|
Family
ID: |
9070764 |
Appl.
No.: |
05/219,329 |
Filed: |
January 20, 1972 |
Foreign Application Priority Data
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|
|
|
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Jan 22, 1971 [FR] |
|
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7102222 |
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Current U.S.
Class: |
5/711; 5/932;
297/DIG.3 |
Current CPC
Class: |
A47C
27/081 (20130101); A47C 27/087 (20130101); Y10S
5/932 (20130101); Y10S 297/03 (20130101) |
Current International
Class: |
A47C
27/08 (20060101); A47c 027/08 (); A47c
027/18 () |
Field of
Search: |
;297/218,DIG.3
;5/338,348,349 |
References Cited
[Referenced By]
U.S. Patent Documents
Primary Examiner: Nunberg; Casmir A.
Claims
What is claimed is:
1. In an inflatable article made of impervious flexible
material,
a first member defining one main, generally plane, surface of the
article and having an edge portion, and
a second member defining another main, generally plane, surface of
the article substantially parallel to said one main surface and
having an edge portion,
one of said first and second members having a given corresponding
dimension larger than the corresponding dimension of the other
member, and
the edge portions of the first and second members together forming
a peripheral lip which lies approximately in the said plane of the
member having the smaller said dimension, when the article is
inflated.
2. In an air mattress,
a first member defining a generally plane surface intended for
receiving a user and having an edge portion around its periphery,
and
a second member defining a generally plane under surface
substantially parallel to the plane surface of the first member and
having an edge portion around its periphery,
said members being connected together at the edge portions to form
a peripheral lip, and
the first member having a smaller width than the second member so
that said lip, when the mattress is inflated, lies substantially in
the plane of the first member.
3. A mattress according to claim 2, comprising a folded strip
having parts which are secured to the first and second members at
the region of said lip.
4. A mattress according to claim 2, wherein at one corner of the
mattress, that part of the second member which lies in the
immediate vicinity of the lip is folded at the corresponding
longitudinal edge and the fold thus formed is glued internally
between lines formed by extensions of the lip of the transverse
edge portion, the fold substantially compensating for the width
differential between the first and second members.
5. A mattress according to claim 2, comprising a dividing wall
which consists of an endless strip, edge portions of which form two
marginal strips one of which marginal strips is glued along its
length onto the entire free inner face of the interconnected first
and second members, while the other marginal strip is folded and
glued to the one marginal strip so that a joint is formed halfway
up the dividing wall, said dividing wall serving to separate the
mattress into a body part and a pillow part.
6. A mattress according to claim 5, wherein in the region of the
dividing wall, the two parts of the folded strip are joined
together to reinforce the peripheral lip.
7. A mattress according to claim 6, comprising a reinforcement for
the connection between the first and second member provided by the
outer marginal strip of the endless strip, the reinforcement having
two parts which are connected to one of the first and second
members and with an adjacent part of the endless strip.
8. A mattress according to claim 7, wherein the connection between
the two superimposed ends which are glued to the inner peripheral
strip is strengthened by a strip which forms a gusset which is
connected to adjacent parts of the endless strip.
Description
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an air mattress.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A mattress which is supplemented by internal connecting elements
which communicate with two main members, in order to give these
members the form of opposed swellings, or in order to give the
mattress the outward shape of a cushion, is already known per se.
Currently, the tendency is towards enhancing the comfort of the
user of the mattress by increasing the volume of air therein. For
this, it is necessary on the one hand to increase the gap between
the two main members in that the connecting elements are suitably
dimensioned, and on the other, to provide along the periphery of
the mattress and between the two main members elements which are
formed from strip or a plurality of strips of a definite contour of
the two main members which give the mattress a parallelepiped form,
a shape which is comparable with the conventional form of a
mattress made from hair or the like. This shape of mattress is
well-known to be aesthetically satisfactory.
The addition of strips which form the sides of the mattress, with
regard to the manufacture of the mattress at the two outer ends,
does give rise to problems insofar as the sides at the four corners
must be simultaneously joined to one another and in fact pairwise
and also to the upper and lower main members, which necessitate the
manufacture of eight three-sided pyramids, the construction of
which is always difficult and time consuming.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention there is provided in an
inflatable article made of impervious flexible material, a first
member defining one main surface of the article and having an edge
portion, and a second member defining another main surface of the
article and having an edge portion, one of said first and second
members having a given corresponding dimension larger than the
corresponding dimension of the other member, and the edge portions
of the first and second members together forming a peripheral lip
which lies approximately in the plane of the member having the
smaller said dimension, when the article is inflated.
Further according to the invention there is provided in an air
mattress, a first member defining a surface intended for receiving
a user and having an edge portion around its periphery, and a
second member defining an under surface and having an edge portion
around its periphery, said members being connected together at the
edge portions to form a peripheral lip and the first member having
a smaller width than the second member so that said lip, when the
mattress is inflated, lies substantially at the level of the first
member.
The mattress or other article according to the invention can in
this way be manufactured and made up by direct connection of the
first and second members along their periphery, the coincidence of
the projecting peripheral lip with the main members of the
mattress, namely with the upper main member of the mattress,
imparting an appealing outer form which corresponds more or less to
the form of a conventional mattress with peripheral flanks or
sides.
This mattress can be made up without the incorporation of
three-sided pyramids, and in fact by virtue of a further
development of the invention, whereby on the outer ends of the
mattress, the broadest part of the member which lies in the
vicinity of the peripheral lip, is folded along each longitudinal
edge and is connected to the longitudinal lip parallel with the
edge, being for example secured by an adhesive, so that a fold
construction is formed, which virtually compensates for the width
differential of the first and second members and is adjacent to the
transversely extending lip of the periphery. The two outer ends
thus have a smaller height with respect to the remaining part of
the mattress, in which latter case the height is fairly great.
Nevertheless, the areas in which the reduced height is located, in
other words the head and foot zones of the mattress, are so
constructed that they do not hinder or disturb the user.
According to a further preferred feature of the mattress according
to the invention, wherein, between the first and second members,
there is a dividing wall which bounds the two, thus-formed
separately inflatable chambers, and of which one chamber forms the
body part of the mattress while the other chamber forms the pillow,
the separating wall is formed by an endless strip, the hems of
selvedges of which form two marginal strips, of which one is for
example secured by an adhesive on the total free inner surface of
the two interconnected main members, while the other marginal strip
is pleated and so connected to the marginal strip that a joint is
formed half-way up the dividing wall. This arrangement allows an
improvement in the outer appearance of the mattress compared with
the conventional solution, wherein between the pillow part and the
mattress body part, a tight joint is formed by gluing the two main
members of a mattress to each other, resulting in an unpleasant
interruption and discontinuity.
The manufacture and the incorporation of the dividing wall, which
are explained in greater detail hereinbefore, can take place while
the mattress is flat, the only difficult points of this
manufacturing problem being the zone of each of the two
longitudinal parts of the peripheral lip .
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
FIG. 1 shows an isometric view of one embodiment of a mattress in
accordance with the invention, in the inflated state;
FIG. 2 is a vertical section on the line 2--2 of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is an isometric fragmentary view to an enlarged scale of one
of the four corner portions of the mattress of FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is an isometric view of a separating wall of the mattress,
which separates the body part of the mattress from the head part;
and
FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic fragmentary view of the mattress in the
non-inflated state.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT
The inflatable mattress shown in FIG. 1 has two main surface
members 1, 2 which are preferably of a rubber-coated fabric. Edge
portions 3, 4 are superposed and connected to each other, for
example by an adhesive. Because of this construction of the edge
portions 3, 4 a lip 6 extends along the periphery of the mattress.
A U-shaped folded strip 7 lies inwardly of the two edge portions 3,
4, the two arms of the strip 7 being connected to the surface
members 1, 2. Parallel with the longitudinal lips 6a, the two
surface members 1, 2 are likewise connected to each other, by a
plurality of web strips 8. These web strips 8 are preferably formed
from coated fabric, form connections between the two main surface
members 1, 2 and give the mattress the appearance of a cushion as
shown in FIG. 1.
The width of the upper surface member 1 is smaller than that of the
lower surface member 2, so that the peripheral lip 6 lies
approximately at the height of the surface member 1, in other words
the surface of the inflated mattress on which a person can
recline.
By giving this width differential a value which is approximately
equal to the height of the web strips 8 which -- as already
explained hereinbefore -- are fairly high, the mattress is made
capable of accommodating a fairly large column of air which makes
it comfortable for reclining.
At the ends of the mattress, the width differential is reduced to
zero, so that the part of the lower surface member 2 which is in
the immediate vicinity of the longitudinal lip 6a of the periphery,
is folded and for example secured by an adhesive to the
corresponding part of the longitudinal lip 6a so that a fold 9 is
formed which is adjacent to and lies below the transversely
extending lip 6b of the periphery. In other words, material of the
lower surface member 2 which is surplus at each edge is formed into
a fold during manufacture so that the mattress when not in use lies
flat. At each corner the material of the fold is secured together
by an adhesive on the inwardly facing surfaces. The width of the
adhered surfaces of the fold corresponding to the width of the lip
6a. This arrangement allows making-up while the corresponding part
of the mattress is flat.
The surface members 1, 2 bound two chambers which correspond to a
body part of the mattress and a pillow 10, which are separately
inflatable through valves 11, 12 and are separated from each other
by a transversely extending separating wall 13, this latter being
shown in detail in FIG. 4 of the drawings. This separating wall 13
consists of a strip of coated fabric 14, the outer ends of which
are connected to each other in that they form a connection 15, so
that the strip 14 is an endless strip. The two hems of this strip
14 form marginal strips 16, 17 or joint edges which give a very
shallow U-shaped or channel profile to the strip 14. The marginal
strip 16 is glued, vulcanised or otherwise secured to the two
surface members 1,2 over its entire length, while the marginal
strip 17 is folded, two folds 18 being formed in the vicinity of
the two longitudinal lips 6a of the periphery, so that two ends
17a, 17b are formed which are superposed and joined to each other,
so that a joint 20 is formed which, together with the connection of
the marginal strip 16 to the limiting surfaces, forms a tight
closure across the cross-section of the mattress.
The longitudinal lips 6a of the peripheral lip 6 are so widened in
the region of the separating wall that the two arms of the folded
strip 7 are joined to each other at this region. In consequence,
the outer marginal strip 16 of the strip 14, which forms the
separating wall 13, is glued directly onto the surface members 1, 2
without any width differential being created, which would entail
the risk of leakages.
The connections of the marginal strip 16 to the surface members 1,
2 and the intermediate connections of the ends 17a, 17b of the
marginal strip 17 are strengthened by a reinforcement 20 having the
form of an angle member, which is secured by adhesion to the strip
14 and to the limiting surfaces 1, 2. A further reinforcement is
provided by a central strip 22 which forms a gusset which is
connected to the adjacent parts of the endless strip 14.
As the diagrammatic view in FIG. 5 shows, the separating wall may
be made up in the plane state, the part which has the width
differential with respect to the lower surface member 2 having a
longitudinally extending fold line 23, while the strip 14 has a
transversely extending fold line 24. By virtue of the fold 9 at the
corners of the mattress (FIG. 1), it is possible to manufacture the
entire mattress in the flat state, resulting in a significant
saving on manufacturing costs.
It lies within the scope of the invention also to manufacture
inflatable dinghy bodies in the hereinbefore described manner.
* * * * *