Resumen de Semi-automatic retractable handrail utilizing opening/closing movement of sliding door supporting elderly people to walk independently: Strength analysis of sliding door and experimental verification
Kinjirou Saitou, Yoshitaka Kubo, HIROYUKI TANAKA, Shuqiong Li, Zefeng Wang, Yasushi Takase, Yoshikazu Sano, Nao-Aki Noda
The sliding door with the retractable handrail examined in this study can be installed in hospitals and nursing facilities for helping the elderly and disabled to walk independently. This provides the prospect of restoring their declining walking abilities. In this study, wood is not used as building construction, which is common usage, but as mechanical structure. Though the strength evaluation is required, there is no clear standard for the fatigue strength of wood. Hence, this study shows the method of calculating the yield strength and fatigue limit of wood by investigating the methods of calculating allowable stresses in ASTM and AIJ, which are intended to be used for building construction. Using the result, the maximum tensile stress σTmax and the maximum compressive strength σCmax on the installation part of the handrail bar mounting plate where the risk is the highest are obtained by the finite element method (FEM). It is shown to be safe for the static strength and fatigue strength above.
