966,751. Wagon doors; sides, floors and roofs. REYNOLDS METALS CO. Aug. 26, 1960 [Nov. 27, 1959], No. 29603/60. Headings B7B and B7L. [Also in Division E1] A freight car door is made up of a plurality of interlocking panels, each panel 130, Figs. 1 and 2, being of extruded metal section and having a substantially plane surface 134 on one side, each longitudinal edge portion of the panel having a channel-shaped configuration 138, 140, 146 and 132, 156, 158, the edge portions of adjacent panels being complementary, whereby when two panels are partially engaged and in tilted positions with respect to each other as shown in Fig. 2, they may be relatively rotated so as to snap into interlocking engagement, which thereafter prevents relative rotation in the opposite sense. Each panel has an intermediate stiffening rib 136. Referring to Fig. 2, one side wall of one channel has an inwardly facing convexly-curved lip 146 merging into an undercut portion or rounded groove 152, whilst the other side wall 160 has an inwardly facing rounded ridge 142 provided with a step 144. The complementary channel of the adjacent panel has in one side wall an external groove provided with a flat wall 164 and a concave surface 162 terminating in a nose portion 168 whilst the other side wall 158 has a squared-end 160. After initially engaging the lip 146 in the groove 162 with the two panels tilted with respect to each other, the panels are relatively rotated until the side wall 158 rides up over the ridge 142 to interlock the end 160 with the step 144, whilst the nose 168 is engaged in the undercut portion 152. One or the other of the sections yields slightly to permit the interlocking. In another embodiment, Figs. 6 and 7, the two complementary channel sections together form a hollow box-section beam. As shown in Fig. 7, the channel of one edge portion is formed by an inwardly facing lip 218, an undercut 222 and by an inwardly facing concavely-curved surface 226, whilst the complementary channel has an external groove 220 and a convex surface 232. The interlocking of the panels is effected by a ridge 240 or an extension 216, 236, 238 of the first channel engaging a ridge 250 on an extension of the other channel until a step 242 snaps behnid a stop 248. Interlocked panels as described above may form corner structures as described with reference to Figs. 4 and 5 and 14 (not shown).
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