Longitudinally sliding accordion door

Abstract

An accordion door includes two half-wings hinged along innermost vertically extending sides thereof, and pivotally supported at upper and lower ends of the outermost vertically extending sides of the door by arms which project from respective trucks slidably engaged with respective upper and lower guide members. The trucks also include three pairs of wheels disposed on three axes orthogonal to each other. The wheels of each pair are fairly spaced apart and engage parallel and opposite surface of longitudinal elements making up the guide members. The trucks are thus confined to slide freely along only a horizontal axis defined by the guide members and cannot deviate from such an axis or from horizontal and vertical axes orthogonal thereto. The accordion door is supported at its lower part on arms of lower ones of the trucks and is suspended from arms of upper ones of the trucks which are quite elastic and are provided with an adjustment device that allows that part of the weight of the door loading the upper trucks to be adjusted. The trucks are also provided with spreading apart devices actuated by the same half-wings during the opening movement thereof, which spread apart the edges of the outermost sides of the accordion door from fixed surfaces which, at the closed position thereof, are adjacent thereto. Finally, the trucks include fixed spacer elements which space the trucks fairly far apart when the door is in the open position.