Paver block

Abstract

 The invention relates to a paver block (1) having a tread surface (2), a base surface (3) extending parallelly thereto and four side surfaces (4,5,6,7), and spacers (8,9) arranged on at least two of its side surfaces (4,5,6,7), and a first spacer member (8) is arranged on one of two adjacent side surfaces (5,6,7) and a second spacer member (9) is arranged on the other side surface (5,6,7) of said two adjacent side surfaces (5,6,7), and the first spacer member (8) is a rib extending parallelly to the tread surface (2), and the second spacer member (9) is a pair of ribs extending along a line perpendicular to the tread surface (2), and a distance (L) between the members of said pair of ribs is at least equal to the width (S) of the first spacer member (8), and the first spacer member (8) is arranged on the side surface (4,5,6,7) directly along a plane (s) being parallel to the tread surface (2) and intersecting the distance (L) between the members of said pair of ribs of the second spacer member (9) at half of said distance (L).(Fig. 1)

Description

[0001] This invention relates to a paver block having a tread surface, a base surface extending parallelly thereto and further having four side surfaces, and a pavement formed by said paver blocks.

[0002] Paver blocks or pavement bricks serve chiefly as to provide artificial facings of outdoor paths, surfaces of footways and roads. Paver blocks are generally made of concrete with different geometrical shapes, among which the most common is the rectangular design. A common feature of different configurations, however, is that providing the block with at least two parallel surfaces, one of which is the tread surface and the other rests on a bed of e.g. sand formed on the ground. In forming a facing on the ground paver blocks are placed next to each other on that prepared sand bed. The elements tightly placed next to each other seamlessly span to each other, resulted in possible damaging and chipping of edges and corners. To solve this problem spacers are generally formed on the side surfaces of the blocks to be placed next to each other, which creates a narrow gap of a few mm between the elements laid down. The gaps of finished tread surface are usually filled with fine sand.

[0003] In the manufacture of paver blocks it is essential that the cavities of the press mold used to form spacers of the side surfaces to be not in undercut position in order to allow the spacer being perpendicular to the tread surface to slide out the cavity in the opening direction of the mould. Consequently, the paving blocks are produced by a mold opening direction perpendicular to the two parallel surfaces, so that during production the parallel surfaces of the blocks are parallel to the mold mould surface, that is, the whole useful tread surface of the blocks produced on a unit surface of a mould by a single stroke of the press is always smaller than the unit surface of the mould. The smaller the thread surface of the block, the smaller the total useful tread surface produced by a single stroke of the mould, because partition walls between the mould cavities occupy more and more space on the mould surface. A paving block produced this way is disclosed for example in patent publications DE 10330928, EP 1057935 and DE 10013613, on all butt surfaces of which, that are perpendicular to the tread surface, spacer ribs also perpendicular to the tread surface are located. For this reason, these spacer ribs can obviously be formed only by a mould opening direction perpendicular to the tread surface. Therefore, the whole tread surface producible by a single stroke of a given mould cannot be increased beyond an optimal limit, that is the production costs cannot be increased further.

[0004] Patent publication document NL 1012047 discloses a Paving block and a method for producing the same, wherein the paving blocks having a rectangular tread surface are cleaved from a molded concrete billet having molded spacers on its two opposite side surfaces perpendicular to the tread surface. Using this method, the size of the total tread surface produced per unit area of the mould surface can be increased, but after the press moulding a further, costly operation of individually cleaving the blocks from the billet must be performed, and the cleaved surface cannot be provided by any spacer.

[0005] To increase the tread surface per unit area of the mould surface producible by one stroke of the mould a much more economical solution would be achieved when the paving block is produced by its tread surface being perpendicular to the surface of the mould, other than being parallel to that surface, in which case a side surface of the block having significantly smaller surface area than that of the tread surface can be contacted with the mould, thus a total tread surface area exceeding the surface area of the mould might be produced. However, prior art spacers extending perpendicularly to the tread surface arranged on that surfaces of the block, which are perpendicular to both the mold surface contacting the block during production and the tread surface as well, cannot produced by this solution, because these spacers would be arranged perpendicularly to the opening direction, i.e. cannot be removed from the mold due to their undercut position, thus these prior art spacers can be formed only on one and a single side surface of the paver block.

[0006] The object of the invention is therefore to provide a paver block to be used in pavements having spacers arranged on at least two side surfaces thereof, and which enables a considerable increase of the whole tread surfaces counted per unit surface area of the mould, and thus the economy of production as well, so that allowing to form spacers on at least two side surfaces perpendicular to the tread surface of the paver block by a single compression step of the mould, without any further forming operation of the paving block would be required. Therefore the paving block e.g. a "paving stone" according to the present invention must be provided by spacers, by which the productivity of manufacture can be increased significantly, even by 2-2.5 times greater. To do that, the paver block must be produced in an "edgewise" position rotated by 90° in relation to its accustomed manufacturing position, while providing spacers not affecting disadvantageously its built in features as compared with conventional paver blocks having vertically oriented spacers.

[0007] Another object of the invention is to create a pavement formed at least partly by engaging paving blocks according to the invention.

[0008] Above objects can be achieved by a paver block according to the invention, having a tread surface, a base surface extending parallelly thereto and four side surfaces, and spacers arranged on at least two of its side surfaces, and a first spacer member is arranged on one of two adjacent side surfaces and a second spacer member is arranged on the other side surface of said two adjacent side surfaces, and the first spacer member is a rib extending parallelly to the tread surface, and the second spacer member is a pair of ribs extending along a line perpendicular to the tread surface, and a distance between the members of said pair of ribs is at least equal to the width of the first spacer member, and the first spacer member is arranged on the side surface directly along a plane being parallel to the tread surface and intersecting the distance between the members of said pair of ribs of the second spacer member at half of said distance.

[0009] The distance of the members of said pair of ribs is at least equal to twice as much the width of the first spacing member, and the first spacer member is arranged on the side surface directly along a plane being parallel to the tread surface and intersecting the distance between the members of said pair of ribs of the second spacer member at half of said distance, on the side of the plane being closest to the base surface, or on the side of the plane being closest to the tread surface.

[0010] The first spacer members are arranged on each two parallel side surfaces, and at least two second pairs of spacer members are arranged on a third side surface.

[0011] The first spacer members are arranged on each two parallel side surfaces, and at least two second pairs of spacer members are arranged on further side surfaces.

[0012] The first spacer member has a length shorter than a length of the side surface.

[0013] The shape of cross-section of the first spacer member is selected from the group of shapes consisting of the square, rectangle, circle segment, ellipses segment, trapezoid, polygon, and combinations thereof.

[0014] The shape of cross section of the second spacer member perpendicular to both the tread surface and the side surface is selected from square the group of shapes consisting of the square, rectangle, circle segment, ellipses segment, trapezoid, polygon, and combinations thereof.

[0015] A line of intersection of the tread surface and the side surface is formed by a chamfer.

[0016] The plane of the chamfer formed at the intersection of the tread surface and said side surface provided by the second spacer member is formed in the same plane as the surface of the second spacer member contacting with the tread surface.

[0017] At the intersection of the base surface and the side surface having the second spacer member, the surface of the second spacer member and the base surface are in the same plane.

[0018] An object of the present invention is further achieved by providing a pavement formed at least partly by paver blocks according to the invention.

[0019] The invention will be described in details in relation to the attached drawings. In the drawings

Fig. 1a and 1b

shows a perspective view of a first preferred embodiment of the paving block according to the invention,

Fig. 2a and 2b

shows a perspective view of a second preferred embodiment of the paving block according to the invention, and

Fig. 3a and 3b

shows a top view (Fig. 3a) and an elevation view (Fig. 3b) of the paving block according to the invention as it can be seen in Fig2a and 2b.

[0020] Fig. 1a and 1b shows a perspective view of a first preferred embodiment of the paving block 1 according to the invention having a tread surface 2, a base surface 3 extending parallelly thereto and further having four side surfaces 4,5,6,7, and spacers 8,9 are arranged on at least two of its side surfaces 4,5,6,7. The Figure shows that one side surface 5 of two adjacent side surfaces 5,7 a first spacer member 8, and on another side surface 7 a second spacer member 9 is provided.

[0021] Given that, in accordance with our objectives, the side surface 4 should be in contact with the mould during the manufacturing process of one paving block 1, the first spacer member 8, thus arranged perpendicularly in relation to the horizontal mould, is a rib having a position parallel to the vertically oriented tread surface 2, since the concrete material filled into the cavities of the mould can be removed from the cavity of the mould only in the direction perpendicular to the mould after pressing. In this case the mould behaves like a sliding shutter, so the ejecting direction of the mould and the orientation of the first spacer member 8 should be the same. The side surface 4 of a paving block 1 manufactured in this way is contacted with the surface of the mould, unlike the manufacturing position of prior art paving blocks, where the base surface 3 is in contact with the mould, so by the prior art manufacturing situation of the paver block spacers perpendicularly arranged to the tread surface 2 - and to the base surface 3 as well - can only be formed in the side surfaces 4,5,6,7. During production, the manufacturing mould is lifted vertically until the total mass of the finished paving blocks leaves the mould.

[0022] Therefore, manufacturing efficiency for production of paver block 1 according to the invention is more favorable, since the paver block 1 is manufactured in a position of standing on its side surface 4 having substantially smaller area, other than lying on its base surface 3.

[0023] Because the paver blocks 1 can be contacted with each other along any of their side surfaces 4,5,6,7 during the construction of a pavement, and a gap to be filled with e.g. sand must be formed between the side surfaces 4,5,6,7, at least one side surface 4,7 of the side surfaces 4,7 adjacent to the side surface 5 has to be provided by a spacer, which is preferably a spacer member 9 as shown in Figure 1a. The spacer member 9 is formed to provide a gap of the same size between two paver blocks 1 while abutting a paver block 1 against any side surface 4,5,6,7 of another paver block 1. This is achieved by forming the second spacer member 9 as a pair of ribs, which is a pair of ribs arranged on the side surface 7 along with a line perpendicular to the tread surface 2. A sufficient distance L is provided between the members of the pair of ribs of the spacer member 9 for fitting a first spacer member 8 of another paver block 1 when abutted. It also follows that the rib heights b of first 8 and second 9 spacer members are equal. In order to fill the gap between two paver blocks 1 properly in a pavement, the length h of a first spacer member 8 is shorter than the length H of the side surface 5,6, so that the filler material, e.g. sand, can flow beside the spacer member 8, getting below it as well. Preferably, a line of intersection of the tread surface 2 and the side surface 4,5,6,7 is formed by a chamfer 10, and in this embodiment the plane s2 of the chamfer 10 formed at the intersection of the tread surface 2 and said side surface 4,5,6,7 provided by the second spacer member 9 is formed in the same plane as the surface f₁ of the second spacer member 9 contacting with the tread surface 2, since in this way no any step-like level difference is occurred between paver blocks 1 abutted against each other by forming of a pavement, even if paver blocks 1 do not lie completely in the same level on a sand bed. It is sufficient, however, if at the intersection of the base surface 3 and the side surface 7 having the second spacer member 9, the surface (f2) of the second spacer member (9) and the base surface (3) are in the same plane.

[0024] For the first embodiment shown in Figures 1a the spacer members 8,9 to be formed on the side surface 5 and on an adjacent side surface 7 of the paver block 1. However, in the embodiment of the paver block 1 according to the invention as shown in Fig. 2a and 2b, a spacer member 8 is arranged as well on the side surface 6 being parallel to the side surface 5, in order to facilitate the forming of a pavement using paver blocks 1 according to the invention. As in this case, spacer members 8 of the paver blocks 1 abutted against each other along side surfaces 5,6 would establish a gap having twice the size between the adjacent paver blocks 1, the first spacer member 8 on the side surface 5 is arranged directly along a plane being parallel to the tread surface 2 and intersecting the distance L between the members of said pair of ribs of the second spacer member 9 at half of said distance L, on the side of the plane being closest to the tread surface 2, while a first spacing member 8 on the side surface 6 are formed on the side of the plane being closest to the base surface 3, preferably directly along the plane. For this, in this embodiment, the distance L of the members of said pair of ribs is at least equal to twice as much the width S of the first spacing member (8). Figure 3a and 3b shows a top view (Fig. 3a) and an elevation view (Fig. 3b) of the paver block 1 according to the invention, as it can be seen in Fig 2a and 2b.

[0025] On the two parallel side surfaces 5,6 of the paver block 1 according to the invention is therefore a first spacer member 8, and on the third side surface 7 at least two second spacer member 9 as a pair of ribs are preferably arranged, while on the fourth side surface 4 no spacer members 8,9 are arranged. It is conceivable, however, an embodiment not shown in the drawings, where at least two second spacer members 9 are arranged on the fourth side face 4, so that the second spacer members 9 arranged on side surfaces 4 and 7 of two adjacent paver blocks 1 abutted against each other in a pavement are in a position placed between each other, that is the second spacer members 9 are formed with an offset position to one another on each side surfaces 4,7.

[0026] The cross-section of the first spacer member 8 can preferably be selected from the group of shapes consisting of the square, rectangle, circle segment, ellipses segment, trapezoid, polygon, and combinations thereof, and the cross section of the second spacer member 9 perpendicular to both the tread surface 2 and the side surface 5,6 can preferably be selected from square the group of shapes consisting of the square, rectangle, circle segment, ellipses segment, trapezoid, polygon, and combinations thereof.

[0027] By placing paver blocks 1 according to the present invention side by side - e.g. on a smoothed sand bed - one can form a pavement in a similar way as it is known in the art.

[0028] The main advantage of the paver block 1 invention as compared to the paver blocks of the prior art is that enables a considerable increase of the whole tread surfaces counted per unit surface area of the mould, and thus the economy of production as well, so that allowing to form spacer members 8,9 on at least two side surfaces perpendicular to the tread surface 2 of the paver block 1 by a single compression step of the mould, without any further forming operation of the paving block 1 would be required, therefore, the paving block 1 according to the present invention can be produced by an "edgewise" position. By this solution the productivity of manufacture can be increased significantly, even by 2-2.5 times greater, while not affecting disadvantageously its built in features as compared with conventional paver blocks having exclusively vertically oriented spacers, as seen in built in state in a pavement.

Claims

1. Paver block (1) having a tread surface (2), a base surface (3) extending parallelly thereto and four side surfaces (4,5,6,7), and spacers (8,9) arranged on at least two of its side surfaces (4,5,6,7), characterized in that a first spacer member (8) is arranged on one of two adjacent side surfaces (5,6,7) and a second spacer member (9) is arranged on the other side surface (5,6,7) of said two adjacent side surfaces (5,6,7), and the first spacer member (8) is a rib extending parallelly to the tread surface (2), and the second spacer member (9) is a pair of ribs extending along a line perpendicular to the tread surface (2), and a distance (L) between the members of said pair of ribs is at least equal to the width (S) of the first spacer member (8), and the first spacer member (8) is arranged on the side surface (4,5,6,7) directly along a plane being parallel to the tread surface (2) and intersecting the distance (L) between the members of said pair of ribs of the second spacer member (9) at half of said distance (L).

2. The paver block according to claim 1, characterized in that the distance (L) of the members of said pair of ribs is at least equal to twice as much the width (S) of the first spacing member (8), and the first spacer member (8) is arranged on the side surface (5,6,) directly along a plane being parallel to the tread surface (2) and intersecting the distance (L) between the members of said pair of ribs of the second spacer member (9) at half of said distance (L), on the side of the plane being closest to the base surface (3), or on the side of the plane being closest to the tread surface (2).

3. The paver block according to claim 2, characterized in that first spacer members (8) are arranged on each two parallel side surfaces (5,6), and at least two second pair of spacer members (9) are arranged on a third side surface (7).

4. The paver block according to claim 1, characterized in that first spacer members (8) are arranged on each two parallel side surfaces (5,6), and at least two second pair of spacer members (9) are arranged on further side surfaces (4,7).

5. The paver block according to claim 3 or 4, characterized in that the first spacer member (8) has a length (h) shorter than a length (H) of the side surface (5.6).

6. The paver block according to claim 5, characterized in that the cross-section of the first spacer member (8) is selected from the group of shapes consisting of the square, rectangle, circle segment, ellipses segment, trapezoid, polygon, and combinations thereof.

7. The paver block according to claim 6, characterized in that the cross section of the second spacer member (9) perpendicular to both the tread surface (2) and the side surface (5,6) is selected from square the group of shapes consisting of the square, rectangle, circle segment, ellipses segment, trapezoid, polygon, and combinations thereof.

8. The paver block according to claim 7, characterized in that a line of intersection of the tread surface (2) and the side surface (4,5,6,7) is formed by a chamfer (10).

9. The paver block according to claim 8, characterized in that the plane (s2) of the chamfer (10) formed at the intersection of the tread surface (2) and said side surface (4,5,6,7) provided by the second spacer member (9) is formed in the same plane as the surface (f₁) of the second spacer member (9) contacting with the tread surface (2).

10. The paver block according to claim 9, characterized in that at the intersection of the base surface (3) and the side surface (4,5,6,7) having the second spacer member (9), the surface (f2) of the second spacer member (9) and the base surface (3) are in the same plane.

11. Pavement formed at least partly by using paver blocks according to any of claims 1-10.

Drawing