GB390197A - Improvements in or relating to flexible joints or mountings - Google Patents

Abstract

390,197. Universal joints. NEWTON, N. B., Newton & Bennett Works, Valetta Road, London. Sept. 29, 1931, No. 27049. [Class 65 (ii).] A joint, allowing rotational and limited universal movement and having provision for automatic compensation for wear, comprises a composite bush in one member of the joint consisting of a rubber sleeve under compression with a thin split metal bearing bushing within the rubber sleeve providing a bearing surface for relative rotational movement on the other member of the joint, the split allowing the metal bushing to close under pressure of the rubber to take up wear and the resilience of the rubber allowing limited universal movement. The metal bushing is preferably made of copper or bronze with its inner surface indented and loaded with graphite lubricant, but ordinary lubricated bushings may be used. In modifications, as an alternative or in addition to a metal bearing bushing inside the rubber sleeve, a similar thin split metal sleeve may be provided outside the rubber sleeve to bear in the outer joint member and to take up wear therein under pressure of the rubber. The joint member against which the rubber bears directly may be splined to interlock with the rubber. In the Figure the outer joint member h encloses a rubber sleeve g under compression, and within the rubber sleeve is a thin metal bearing bush b, split at c to allow of contraction to take up wear, in which bears the inner joint member f. The split in the bearing bush may be of any shape, and in modifications there may be more than one split, dividing the bush into two or more segments, or the bush may be divided circumferentially into two or more short bushes each of which is split, the splits in the different sections being preferably at different parts of the circumference. It is stated that in a modification having bearing bushes inside and outside the rubber sleeve the two bearing surfaces may be arranged at right-angles in a universal joint. Specifications 327,801, [Class 65 (ii), Hinges &c.], 381,687, and 385,355 are referred to.