FI65950C - STABILIZATION REQUIREMENT FOR SUSPENSION OF GLID I SIDLED I TT SVAEVFORDON - Google Patents

Description

65950

The present invention relates to such vehicles, and more particularly to anti-slip devices for air-cushion vehicles intended to travel in poor road conditions.

The device presented here is intended for use in an hovercraft which prevents it from sliding in the lateral direction in the direction of travel on sloping ground or following bends in the route of travel.

In principle, an air-cushioned vehicle is known (cf. U.S. Patent No. 3,246,712; Cl. 180-7, published 1966), which has inflatable wheels mounted on support members which engage the body of the vehicle by means of pivot pins and which are allowed to swing freely in a substantially perpendicular plane with respect to its longitudinal centerline, so that the wheels in turn tilt relative to the ground, which has a detrimental effect on their grip and which weakens the anti-slip effect.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an anti-skid device for an air-cushion vehicle which better prevents slipping due to the more reliable grip of the wheels provided by the use of disc-shaped wheels mounted by means of a lever in the shape of a parallelepiped.

30 This object is achieved by the fact that, in the case of an anti-skid device for hovercraft, the wheels of which are mounted by means of a linkage so as to be able to swing in the direction of the vehicle body, the linkage which wheels are each generally discs of trapezoidal cross-section and provided with cylindrical support necks which prevent the wheels from sinking too far into the ground.

It is desirable that the anti-slip device comprises a washer which is pivotally mounted in connection with the articulated parallelepipeds and the vehicle body, the latter-10 via a torsion bar suspension.

Such an anti-slip device design avoids being damaged by heavy dynamic loads.

The anti-skid device for the air-cushion vehicle presented here achieves a more reliable prevention of side-slip when the vehicle is running on sloping ground or along a winding road, whereby the course of the vehicle remains more stable.

The invention will now be described in more detail with reference to the embodiment thereof, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which Figure 1 is a general view of an anti-slip device in the operative position according to the invention, seen from behind; Fig. 2 is a view of an anti-slip device according to the invention taken along arrow A in Fig. 1; Figure 3 shows a side view of the structure of the anti-skid device according to the invention when the vehicle hits an obstacle; Fig. 4 is a schematic rear view of an anti-skid device mounted on a vehicle in its uppermost position in accordance with the invention; Fig. 5 is a schematic rear view of a anti-skid device mounted on a vehicle 65950 in its lowest position in accordance with the invention.

The anti-skid device for an air-cushion vehicle presented here comprises wheels 1 (Fig. 1) which are mounted on a pivoting shaft in the vehicle body 2 5 by means of a linkage »in the shape of parallelepipeds 3.

Each wheel 1 is a generally trapezoidal cross-section disc and comprises a cylindrical support neck 10. Each articulated parallelepiped 3 comprises arms 5, bearing pins 6 by means of which the arms 5 engage the connecting arm 7, and bearing pins 8 which connect to the washer 9.

The washer 9 is connected to the connection 15 of the frame 2 by means of bearing pins 10 and can be best positioned in the operating position shown in Fig. 2 and in the obstacle 12 when it hits the second position thanks to the torsion bar suspension 11 (Fig. 3).

The articulated parabolas 3 (Fig. H) settle in their upper-20 head position when the vehicle body 2 is on the ground and the air barrier is inoperative; on the other hand, they again settle in their lowest position when the air barrier raises the body 2 (Fig. 5) as high as possible.

As the hovercraft travels along a winding path 25 or on a sloping surface, it begins to be subjected to lateral forces that tend to steer it to the side.

The anti-skid device presented here, which is intended to be mounted on the rear of an air-cushion vehicle, is designed to prevent it from drifting to the side in this way.

As the hovercraft travels straight ahead, the wheels 1 (Fig. 1) are pushed to the ground by their own gravity alone and thus sink only slightly into the ground. When a lateral force acts on the vehicle body 2, this tends to move sideways from its direction. At the same time, the lateral force component and part of the gravity of the vehicle are applied to the wheel 1 along the arms 5 of its articulated parallelogram 3, in the direction of which the lateral displacement takes place. This is due to the fact that the arms 5, when turning around the bearing pins 6 at the ends of the vertical connecting arms 7, at the same time tend to raise the frame 2. Under the influence of said forces the wheel 1, in the direction of

10 Cylindrical support necks 4 made of the material in question, e.g. steel, tend to prevent the wheels 1 from sinking too far into the ground. Thanks to the bearing pins 8 of each parallelogram 3, since they are vertically one above the other, each connecting arm 7 maintains its vertical position despite the position of the arms 5 changing according to the ground, and thus the wheel discs 1 maintain their vertical position with respect to the ground.

Such an arrangement of the wheels 1 achieves a much higher power against the lateral force applied to them and is quite effective in preventing the hovercraft from deviating sideways from its direction.

In order to protect the anti-slip device from dynamic overloads, it is provided with a washer 9 which is pivotally attached to the frame 2 by means of a torsion bar spring 11. When the wheel 1 hits the obstacle 12 (Fig. 3), the washer 9 has to turn around the pin 10 and twist the torsion bar suspension 11, the function of which is to dampen the impact against the obstacle 12.

30 When the air barrier suddenly stops working (not shown in the figures), the vehicle body 2 (Fig. H) lands on the ground, causing the washer 9 to pivot around the pin 10 (Fig. 3) and the torsion bar suspension 11 to twist, causing the wheels 1 to rotate backwards and sideways.

35 that settle in the position shown in Fig. H.

5,65950

Fig. 5 is a schematic representation of the anti-slip device when the air barrier has raised the body 2 as high as possible.

The above invention more reliably prevents the hovercraft from sliding sideways due to the fact that the wheels are attached to it by means of articulated parallelogram-shaped levers, as a result of which the wheels remain in a vertical plane in order to act as effectively as possible against sideways deviation.