Computer-aided design of new service doors for recreational vehicles

Recreational vehicles (camper, vans and motorhomes) are equipped with service doors to access to specific areas such as water tank or luggage zone. As the state-of-the-art technology stands at present, two different typologies of service doors are manufactured: doors with plastic frames, obtained by injection molding, and doors with aluminum frames realized by extruded bars. Plastic frame-based doors are characterized by concealed hinges (i.e. hinges integrated in the frame), therefore resulting aesthetically pleasant to the final user. Unfortunately, they are basically produced in standard dimensions due to the complexity and costs of injection molding process; as a consequence the number of available measures in the market is really limited. Quite the reverse, aluminum frame-based doors can be produced in customizable formats by adjusting the bars length. The main drawbacks of this second typology of doors are that the cutting and bending machines, used to produce them, need to be periodically tuned in order to take into account possible environmental thermal variations and, moreover, in order to achieve 180° opening, the hinges are required to stick out the wall. Moving from these considerations, this work proposes a CAD/CAE-based design of an innovative service door based on a modular design where frames consist of extruded plastic bars, cut in required length, which are capable to comprise concealed hinges. Accordingly, the new door designed in the present work brings together the advantages offered by the standard solutions pushing forward the RV door technological state of the art.