Certain known devices require doors and do not provide any protection from cold and noise, while others use a system made up of a protective bellows and of a metal floor, with all the ensuing problems of metal slides and hinges in the floor.
Other devices require space to be dedicated to them in the ends of the bodies for the purpose of receiving the floor systems.
Most devices require mechanical load take-up or load bearing systems, e.g. bearing on the coupling bar. Using such known devices is not without problems relating to maintenance, to wear, to noise, to lack of compactness, to cleaning, e.g. for draining cleaning water, or to cavities in which various objects can build up.
Flexible floors also exist that are connected to a bellows, the flexible floor and the bellows forming a corridor connection module that is self-supporting. Such a flexible floor is known, for example, from European Patent EP 860 305.
In the current state of the art, implementing such a floor whose weight is supported by the bellows requires mechanical couplings between the bellows and the raised edges of the floor. In addition to being visible, such a coupling suffers from the drawback of providing no sealing, and therefore of offering only a very small amount of noise attenuation at the coupling between the floor and the bellows.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds