| 摘要 |
An air pallet such as a patient mover which may be formed of upper and lower thin flexible film sheets sealed at their edges to form a plenum chamber therebetween, functions to move with minimal friction, a load supported by a generally rigid planar backing member, which may be the load itself, over an underlying generally planar fixed support surface. The bottom thin flexible material sheet is perforated by small diameter perforations such as pin holes at the load imprint area. Dual opposed air inlets permit pressurization of the plenum chamber by insertion of a wand connected to a source of pressurized air into one of the air inlets. Air escaping from the perforations creates an air bearing between the fixed support surface and the bottom thin flexible film material sheet. A pair of flexible strips are interposed at laterally opposed inlets within the plenum chamber and extend across the chamber from opposed edges of the air pallet with the free ends of the strips overlapped. Air inlet openings are formed at respective edges where the flexible strips and the flexible sheets are sealed together between one side of each strip and an adjacent thin flexible film sheet. Both strip side edges are preferably sealed to said other flexible film sheets form defined air passages, inwardly of the inlet openings. Automatically, at the insertion of a wand bearing air under pressure into the opening at one side of the air pallet, as a result of air flow, between the strip overlappings, a strip acts to seal the opening at the opposite side of the air pallet prior to air pressurization of the plenum chamber by air flow from between the overlapping portions of the flexible film strips into said plenum chamber.
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