JP2010060016A - Air spring device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an air spring device which improves durability without reducing an amount of displacement of an air spring device by correcting a lamination elastic body. <P>SOLUTION: The air spring device 1 consists of an air spring 2 formed by airtightly sandwiching a flexible film body 6 between an upper plate 4 and lower plate 5, and a plurality of elastic members 8a-8g which are laminated in series by sandwiching rigid members 9 between layers of the elastic members. It furthermore provides a lamination elastic body 3 in which its one end is connected with at least one of the upper plate 4 and the lower plate 5 of the air spring 2, and a supporting member 11 attached to the other end of the lamination elastic body 3. Additionally, among the plurality of elastic members 8a-8g of the lamination elastic body, the thickness of the elastic member 8a attached to the supporting member is greater than thicknesses of the other elastic members 8b-8g. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2010,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an air spring device that can be suitably applied to a railway vehicle, particularly a bolsterless carriage.

  As one of the carriages attached to the railway vehicle, there is a bolsterless carriage having an air spring device, and the amount of deformation required for the air spring device when the vehicle travels is large in the front-rear direction, which is the traveling direction of the railway vehicle, Small in the left-right direction, which is the direction orthogonal to the traveling direction. As an air spring device for a bolsterless carriage, an air spring formed by airtightly holding a flexible film body such as a rubber bellows between an upper surface plate and a lower surface plate as disclosed in Patent Document 1. An air spring device is often used in combination with a laminated elastic body formed by laminating a rigid member between a plurality of elastic members.

When such an air spring device is mounted on a bolsterless carriage and mounted on a railway vehicle, the air spring absorbs vibration of the vehicle and suppresses deformation in the vertical direction due to a load from the vehicle, but also in the front-rear direction. In response to an input, it bends and deforms in the same direction as the input. Further, since the laminated elastic body is also elastically deformed by the input in the front-rear direction, it is possible to ensure a large amount of deformation in the front-rear direction as the entire air spring device. Therefore, it is possible to sufficiently deform the air spring device in the front-rear direction while absorbing vibrations by the air spring and improving the riding comfort during riding.
JP 11-321646 A

  By the way, with the recent demand for ensuring high safety for vehicles and reducing maintenance costs, there is a demand for further improvement in durability of the air spring device that supports the vehicle body. In the air spring device, in order to realize this improvement in durability, it is effective to extend the life of the laminated elastic body.

  However, if the rigidity of the elastic member constituting the laminated elastic body is increased, naturally the amount of displacement of the laminated elastic body also decreases, so that the amount of displacement of the air spring device is insufficient with respect to the required displacement amount in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle body. There is a fear.

  Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide an air spring device having improved durability without reducing the displacement amount of the air spring device by optimizing a laminated elastic body.

  The inventor of the present application, as a result of earnest research to achieve the above object, among the plurality of elastic members of the laminated elastic body, is located farthest from the air spring and is a support member connected to the carriage or vehicle The elastic member attached to the elastic member is less durable than the other elastic members, and one end of the laminated elastic body is connected to the air spring while the other end is fixed to the support member, and The knowledge that the thickness of each elastic member is uniform was acquired. That is, when a shearing force is generated in the air spring device in the front-rear direction and the laminated elastic body is elastically deformed, one end of the laminated elastic body is connected to the air spring while the other end is fixed to the support member. Therefore, the bending moment increases as the distance from the air spring increases, and the stress concentration in the elastic member attached to the support member increases compared to other elastic members. The influence of stress concentration on the elastic member attached to the support member becomes large.

  The present invention has been completed on the basis of such knowledge. That is, the object of the present invention is to provide an air spring in which a flexible film body is airtightly sandwiched between an upper plate and a lower plate, and a plurality of elastic members. A laminated elastic body in which a rigid member is sandwiched between layers of the elastic member and laminated in series, one end of which is connected to at least one of the upper surface plate and the lower surface plate of the air spring; and the laminated elastic body And a support member attached to the other end of the laminated elastic body. Among the plurality of elastic members of the laminated elastic body, the thickness of the elastic member attached to the support member is the same as that of the other elastic member. This is achieved by an air spring device characterized by being greater than the thickness. By adopting such a configuration and making the thickness of the elastic member attached to the support member larger than the thickness of the other elastic members, the spring constant of the elastic member attached to the support member can be reduced and supported. Since the stress concentration between the elastic member attached to the member and the other elastic member can be made uniform, the influence of the stress concentration of the elastic member attached to the support member can be reduced as compared with the conventional air spring device. Can do. In addition, since the distortion generated when the air spring is displaced in the horizontal direction can be effectively reduced in the elastic member attached to the support member, the collapsed deformation of the laminated elastic body can be suppressed. Therefore, the durability can be improved without reducing the displacement of the air spring.

  Moreover, it is preferable that the thickness of the elastic member adjacent to the elastic member attached to the support member is increased next to the elastic member attached to the support member.

  Moreover, it is preferable that the thickness of each elastic member gradually decreases as the distance from the support member increases.

  According to the present invention, by optimizing the laminated elastic body, the durability can be improved without reducing the displacement amount of the air spring device.

  Hereinafter, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a top view of a typical air spring device according to the present invention. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line EOE ′ of the air spring device shown in FIG. 1, and the right side thereof shows a cross section taken along the front-rear direction (the line OE ′) that is the traveling direction of the vehicle. Yes, the left side shows a cross section along the left-right direction (O-E line). FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a cross section along the front-rear direction when the air spring device shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 is deformed in the front-rear direction.

  An air spring device 1 according to the present invention includes an air spring 2 and a laminated elastic body 3 as shown in FIGS. The air spring 2 is disposed between the upper surface plate 4, the lower surface plate 5, and the upper surface plate 4 and the lower surface plate 5, and both ends thereof are airtightly connected to the upper surface plate 4 and the lower surface plate 5. It consists of a flexible film body 6. The top plate 4 is provided with an upper boss 7 for being attached to and fixed to a railway vehicle. In order to ensure the internal pressure of the air spring 2, a gas such as air or an inert gas is filled.

The laminated elastic body 3 is composed of an elastic member 8a to 8g (generally called an elastic member 8) composed of seven layers of cylindrical rubber, and a six-layered cylindrical rigid member 9 sandwiched between the elastic members 8a to 8g. 5 are stacked in series. The inner and outer diameters of the elastic members 8a to 8b are all set equal. A lower end support member 11 having a lower boss 10 for attaching and fixing to a bolsterless carriage is attached to the surface of the laminated elastic body 3 on the side away from the air spring 2. Among the elastic members 8 of the laminated elastic body 3, the thickness ha of the most distal elastic member 8 a that is the most distal elastic member 8 with respect to the air spring 2 is the thickness of the other elastic members 8 _b to 8 g. It is larger than h _{b to} h _g .

  In general, in the air spring device 100 according to the related art as shown in FIG. 4, when the elastic member 108 of the laminated elastic body 103 is separated from the air spring 102 when the elastic member 108 is deformed in the front-rear direction, the input in the front-rear direction is increased. It is heavily loaded. At the same time, when the laminated elastic body 103 is deformed in the input load direction, the distalmost elastic member 108 a is restrained by the lower end support member 111 and the laminated elastic body 103 is pulled by the air spring 102. Therefore, the elastic member 108 is also pulled in the vertical direction, and the elastic member 108 located on the distal side with respect to the air spring is more heavily loaded in the vertical direction. Therefore, when the air spring device of the prior art is deformed in the front-rear direction, the laminated elastic body 103 is deformed into a shape that collapses as it is, and the amount by which the most distal elastic member 108a is deformed in the front-rear direction and the vertical direction. The phenomenon that becomes the largest occurs. As a result, the stress concentration of the most distal elastic member 108a becomes larger than that of other elastic members, and when the thickness of each elastic member 108 is uniform, the influence of the stress concentration on the most distal elastic member 108a is large. It was.

In contrast, in the present invention, the volume of the distal-most elastic member 8a by greater than the thickness h _b to h _g of a thickness h _a distal-most elastic members 8a other resilient member 8b~8g Since it can be made larger than that of the other elastic members 8b to 8g, the spring constant of the most distal elastic member 8a can be reduced and the most distal elastic member 8a and the other elastic members 8b to 8g Therefore, the influence of the stress concentration on the most distal elastic member 8a can be reduced as compared with the conventional air spring device 100 as shown in FIG. The deformation of each elastic member 8a to 8g of the body 3 can be made uniform). Moreover, since the distortion produced when the air spring 2 is displaced in the horizontal direction can be effectively reduced in the most distal elastic member 8a, the collapse of the laminated elastic body 3 can be effectively suppressed. Therefore, the durability of the air spring device 1 can be improved without reducing the displacement amount. The “deformation amount” of the air spring device 1 specifically refers to the axis X of the upper boss 7 and the axis of the lower boss 10 when the axis of the upper boss 7 is X and the axis of the lower boss 10 is Y. The deviation width SL from the axis Y is indicated.

  Moreover, when manufacturing the air spring device 1 according to the present invention adopting the above-described configuration, various parts of the conventional air spring device can be used as they are, except that the elastic members 8a to 8g having different dimensions are used. Therefore, it is possible to improve the durability while keeping the manufacturing cost low.

Further, the thickness h _b of the elastic member 8b adjacent to the most distal elastic members 8a, it is preferable to increase to the next thickness h _a distal-most resilient member 8a. In this way, the stress concentration in each of the elastic members 8a to 8g of the laminated elastic body 3 can be made more uniform, so that the durability of the air spring device 1 can be further enhanced.

In addition, the thicknesses h _a to h _g of the elastic members 8 _{a to} 8 _g are gradually decreased as they move away from the lower end support member 11, that is, the thicknesses of the elastic members 8 _{a to} 8 _g are gradually increased from the lower end support member 11 toward the air spring 2. It is preferable to reduce h _{a to} h _g . In this way, it is possible to completely equalize the stress concentration in the elastic members 8a to 8g of the laminated elastic body 3 without increasing the overall height of the laminated elastic body 3. The durability of the spring device 1 can be further enhanced while downsizing.

  The above description shows only a part of the embodiment of the present invention, and these configurations can be combined alternately or various changes can be made without departing from the gist of the present invention. For example, in the illustrated example, the laminated elastic body 3 is attached only to the lower surface plate 5, but is attached only to the upper surface plate 4 on the opposite side, or attached to both the upper surface plate 4 and the lower surface plate 5. It is also possible. In addition, the elastic members 8a to 8g of the air spring device 1 that have been illustrated and described so far have a shape that is recessed inside with a constant curvature on the outer diameter side of the laminated elastic body 3, but the illustration is omitted. However, on the outer diameter side of the laminated elastic body 3, it is also possible to have a shape that is recessed in two types of curvature.

  Next, in order to confirm the effect of the present invention, an air spring device according to the present invention (Example 1) and an air spring device according to the prior art (Conventional Example 1) were respectively prototyped and subjected to durability evaluation. explain.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the air spring device of Example 1 has an air spring and a seven-layer cylindrical elastic member made of rubber, and a thickness of 8 mm made of a general structural rolled steel plate between the layers. And a laminated elastic body formed by sandwiching and sandwiching a cylindrical rigid member. The height of the air spring device is 270 mm and the width is 680 mm. Further, the elastic member of the air spring device has the same outer diameter and inner diameter, and the thickness thereof is as shown in Table 1. As shown in FIG. 4, the air spring device of Conventional Example 1 includes an air spring and a seven-layered cylindrical elastic member formed of rubber, and a thickness of 8 mm formed of a general structural rolled steel plate between the layers. And a laminated elastic body formed by sandwiching the rigid members. The height of the air spring device is 270 mm and the width is 680 mm. Further, the elastic member of the air spring device has the same outer diameter and inner diameter, and the same thickness (see Table 1).

  The durability of the air spring device is such that the air spring is loaded with an internal pressure (relative pressure) of 490 kPa and the axis of the upper boss and the axis of the lower boss are displaced by a deviation of 70 mm in the front-rear direction at room temperature. The spring device was repeatedly deformed and evaluated by measuring the number of repetitions until a failure (crack) occurred in the laminated elastic body. The occurrence of failure was visually observed. The results are shown in Table 2.

As a result of the above test, as shown in Table 2, in the air spring device of Conventional Example 1, when the number of repetitions of deformation reaches 500,000 times, the deformation is warped toward the air spring near the outer periphery of the lower end support member. As a result, cracks occurred in the lowermost layer (the most distal elastic member) and the adjacent (second layer) elastic member. In contrast, in the air spring device of Example 1, no failure occurred until the number of deformation repetitions reached 2 million times. Therefore, it was confirmed that high durability can be obtained by the present invention.

  As is apparent from the above, the present invention has made it possible to improve the durability without reducing the amount of displacement of the air spring device.

FIG. 1 is a top view of a typical air spring device according to the present invention. 2 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line EOE ′ of the air spring device shown in FIG. 1, and the right side thereof shows a cross section taken along the front-rear direction (the line OE ′) that is the traveling direction of the vehicle. Yes, the left side shows a cross section along the left-right direction (O-E line). FIG. 3 is a cross-sectional view showing a cross section along the front-rear direction when the air spring device shown in FIGS. 1 and 2 is deformed in the front-rear direction. FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing a cross section similar to that of FIG. 2 in a conventional air spring device.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Air spring apparatus 2 Air spring 3 Laminated elastic body 4 Upper surface board 5 Lower surface board 6 Flexible film body 7 Upper boss 8 Elastic member 8a The most distal elastic member 9 Rigid member 10 Lower boss 11 Lower end support member X Upper boss axis Y Lower boss axis SL Deviation width between upper boss axis and lower boss axis

Claims (3)

An air spring formed by airtightly sandwiching a flexible film body between an upper surface plate and a lower surface plate, and a plurality of elastic members are laminated in series with a rigid member sandwiched between the elastic members, An air spring device comprising: a laminated elastic body having one end connected to at least one of an upper surface plate and a lower surface plate of the air spring; and a support member attached to the other end of the laminated elastic body.
Among the plurality of elastic members of the laminated elastic body, the air spring device is characterized in that the thickness of the elastic member attached to the support member is larger than the thickness of the other elastic members.   The air spring device according to claim 1, wherein a thickness of an elastic member adjacent to the elastic member attached to the support member is next to that of the elastic member attached to the support member.   The air spring device according to claim 1, wherein the thickness of each elastic member gradually decreases as the distance from the support member increases.

Images