ELECTROSTATIC LOCKING UNIT Russian patent published in 2015 - IPC E05B47/00 

FIELD: electricity.

SUBSTANCE: electrostatic locking unit (ELU) is related to devices fixing and retaining of separate parts or elements of different mechanisms and facilities in a fixed position with possibility of their further disconnection, it functions due to electrostatic (Coulomb) force attracting electrodes charged with the opposite electrical charges and divided by a relatively thin layer of dielectric. This invention is intended to eliminate ELU sensitivity to the smallest impurities occurring at electrodes or dielectric in the electrode contact zone in process of operation. For this purpose ELU is equipped with special locking mechanism consisting of two main parts separated mechanically, one part of them is a locked one while the other part is a mating part. At that ELU electrodes are placed in compact way at the mating part by kinematic link thus allowing complete isolation of electrodes from impurities and other harmful impact of environment, which may make ELU operation impossible.

EFFECT: invention eliminates necessity of high precision and expensive tuning of ELU elements at mounting of the equipment in order to ensure multiple precise contact and close abutment of ELU electrodes at its closure in process of operation; allows simplifying and cheapening of the equipment mounting, provides additional usage of mechanical lever effect in order to increase effective force of the device retention in close position.

6 cl, 1 dwg