WO2004106839A1

WO2004106839A1 - Ground rolling self-propelled mine detonating vehicle

Info

Publication number: WO2004106839A1
Application number: PCT/GB2004/002322
Authority: WO
Inventors: Alan Richard Reece
Original assignee: Alan Richard Reece
Priority date: 2003-06-03
Filing date: 2004-06-02
Publication date: 2004-12-09
Also published as: GB0312694D0

Abstract

A mine detonating vehicle (2) comprises a vehicle body (4), a pair of forward wheels (6) and a pair of rear wheels (8) , Forward rollers (10) located rearwardly of the forward wheels (6) and rear rollers (12) located rearwardly of the rear wheels (8) can be pressed onto the ground. As the forward rollers (10) are pressed onto the ground, the front wheels (6) are lifted out of contact with the ground.

Description

GROUND ROLLING SELF-PROPELLED MINE DETONATING VEHICLE

The present invention relates to vehicles fitted with rollers and relates particularly, but not exclusively, to vehicles for detonating mines lying on'or in the ground.

Such rollers are usually propelled by armoured fighting vehicles . Some of these rollers fitted to the front of heavy tanks rely on their own dead weight to press on the ground with sufficient force to detonate mines over only a small proportion of the vehicle width. In order to roll the whole vehicle width some modern roller systems have lightweight rollers pressed down onto the ground applying some of the vehicle weight to the rollers and reducing the weight available for traction. A typical tracked vehicle and roller system can exert only about 40% of its total system weight on the rollers. This combination of tracked fighting vehicle and rollers has numerous disadvantages. The vehicle is expensive to buy and maintain and very vulnerable to attack by mines if one is missed by the roller system. It is also very difficult to see out of such a vehicle if the driver is closed down under the armour and in these circumstances rolling can only be carried out at low speed.

Preferred embodiments of the present invention seek to overcome the above disadvantages of the prior art .

According to the present invention there is provided a mine detonating vehicle comprising: -

a vehicle body;

at least one pair of forward wheels; at least one pair of rear wheels located rearwardly of said forward wheels;

at least one first roller located forwardly of at least one said pair of forward wheels ;

at least one second roller located rearwardly of at least one said pair of rear wheels; and

first pressing means for pressing at least one said first roller onto the ground to raise at least one said pair of forward wheels from the ground.

This has the advantage of using a low cost base vehicle, a standard four wheel drive farm tractor, or wheeled loading shovel using articulated steering, which are relatively resistant to damage to themselves and their drivers because their .wheels are set out as far as possible from the chassis. They can also easily be sufficiently armoured. The rear wheels can be isolated from the tractor by arranging the rear wheels to shear off their axles if subjected to an exploding mine. This allows the wheels to be blasted off the axle in such a way that only the wheel and tyre are damaged and they can be easily replaced. Such protection for the front steerable wheels is not so easily provided because they have a large reduction gear box protruding into the wheel. By lifting these steering wheels off the ground they are protected f om setting off mines . However they provide the important advantage that if the first rollers are destroyed then the vehicle simply falls down onto its front wheels and control can be maintained even at high speed.

Pressing the front rollers down against a stop and lifting the original front wheels off the ground has the effect of transferring weight onto the rear rollers. Pressing the rear rollers down to a predetermined force takes weight off the rear wheels and adds it to the front wheels. By adjusting this force and adding water ballast differentially between roller sets, an approximately equal load can be applied to each wheel or roller. This arrangement has the great advantage that all of the system weight can be applied to the rollers giving about 2.5 times the weight per unit rolled width of existing tracked fighting vehicle mounted rollers .

The vehicle may further comprise second pressing means for pressing at least one said second roller onto the ground.

The vehicle may further comprise control means for fixing at least one said second roller in position relative to said vehicle body in the event of an explosion under a said rear wheel.

This provides the advantage of providing support at the rear of the vehicle if one of the rear wheels is lost when travelling at high speed, thus enabling the vehicle to be safely brought to rest.

The or each said first and second roller may be pivotable relative to said vehicle body about a respective substantially vertical pivot axis.

This provides the advantage of enabling the vehicle to be steered when the rollers are in the working position and the forward wheels are lifted off the ground.

The vehicle may further comprise steering means for causing the or each said first and second roller to pivot about the corresponding said pivot axis.

Said steering means may comprise at least one hydraulic cylinder. This provides the additional advantage of enabling energy to be absorbed if an explosion drives a roller assembly sideways .

The pivot axes may be located such that all of said wheels and rollers in contact with the ground when the vehicle is in use roll about a single point when the vehicle is travelling around a curve.

At least one said pivot axis may be located substantially mid-way between the corresponding said roller and said rear wheels .

This provides the advantage of enabling the rollers and the forward wheels to all turn about the same centre when the front roller steering system is operated. This in turn enables the overlaps between the roller assemblies to be maintained for each radius of turn.

The vehicle body may comprise a first body part supporting said forward wheels and a second body part supporting said rear wheels, wherein said first and second body parts are pivotable relative to each other.

At least one said first roller may be pivotable relative to said first body part and at least one said second roller may be pivotable relative to the second body part.

The steering means may be adapted to steer the or each said forward pair of wheels and the or each said first roller.

This provides the advantage of enabling the first roller steering action and the forward wheels to produce the same steering radius. The vehicle may further comprise a third pressing means for pressing at least one said forward wheel onto the ground.

This provides the advantage of assisting in maintaining load on the inner rear wheel when making sharp turns .

Preferred embodiments of the invention will now be described, by way of example only and not in any limitative sense, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: -

Figure 1 is a schematic side elevation view of a vehicle of a first embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 2 is a plan view of the vehicle of Figure 1;

Figure 3 is a front view of the vehicle of Figure 1;

Figure 4 is a schematic plan view of the vehicle of Figure 1 making a turn of small radius;

Figure 5 is a side elevation view of a vehicle of a second embodiment of the present invention;

Figure 6 is a plan view of the vehicle of Figure 5; and

Figure 7 is a plan view of the vehicle of Figure 5 travelling around a curve.

Referring to Figures 1 to 3 , a ground rolling vehicle 2 has a vehicle body 4 based on a conventional four-wheel drive agricultural tractor, having front wheels 6 and rear wheels 8 reduced to the same size as the front wheels 6, which are also the same size as front 10 and rear 12 rollers. As a result, the rear wheels 8 are lowered relative to armoured vehicle chassis 14 and rotate at higher speed than the rear wheels of a conventional tractor, as a consequence of which additional gearing (not shown) to the wheels is provided. In this way, only one size of tyre is required for the wheels 6, 8 and rollers 10, 12. The vehicle body 4 is also provided with a driver's cab 16, of lower height than the cab of a conventional tractor, thus allowing the vehicle 2 to be driven into a transport aircraft.

The front rollers 10 are pivotable about a generally vertical pivot axis at steering pivot 18, and about a generally horizontal axis at lift and lower pivot 20. Pivoting of the front rollers 10 about the pivots 18, 20 is controlled by steering hydraulic cylinders 22 and lift and lower cylinder 24 respectively. The rear rollers 12 pivot up and down and sideways about a universal joint 26, and the rear rollers 12 are pressed down onto the ground with a controllable force via a soft spring 28. Shock absorber cylinders 30 absorb energy if an explosion pushes the rear rollers 12 sideways, and can also be used to steer the rear rollers 12 under certain circumstances.

The operation of the vehicle 2 shown in Figures 1 to 3 will now be described.

The vehicle can be driven by means of wheels 6, 8 with the rollers 10, 12 lifted out of contact with the ground. In order to place the vehicle in its mine detonating mode, the front rollers 10 are pivoted downwards about pivot 20 to push front wheels 6 upwards out of contact with the ground. At the same time, the rear rollers 12 are pivoted downwards about universal joint 26 to place more of the weight of the vehicle 2 on the front rollers 10. If the front roller 10 detonates a mine and is destroyed, the vehicle 2 can fall downwards until the front wheels 6 come into contact with the ground, to ensure that control of the moving vehicle is not lost. The rear wheels - 1 -

8 can be arranged to shear off their axles if subject to an explosion, which minimises the risk of injury to the driver of the vehicle 2. In this way, and as can be seen from Figure 3, the .front rollers 10, rear wheels 8 and rear rollers 12 together ensure that the ground is rolled over the entire width of the vehicle.

In particular, as can be seen from Figure 2, steering pivot 18 is located generally midway between the axle of front roller 10 and the axle of rear wheels 8. Similarly, the universal joint 26 is located generally midway between the axle of rear roller 12 and the axle of rear wheels 8. As a result, as the vehicle travels around a curve, the rear wheels 8 and rear roller 12 track the front roller 10 to ensure that their paths continue to overlap sufficiently to roll the full width of the vehicle path.

Referring to Figure 4, when the vehicle 2 is turning under the control of the front rollers 10, for example on a 7m radius about a centre 32 on the rear tractor axle centreline, the effective centre of gravity 34 is such that there is very little load on the inner rear driven wheel 8A, and pressing the outer front wheel 6A down onto the ground transfers load onto the inner rear driven wheel 8A. Further hydraulic cylinders (not shown) can be provided to selectively press one of other of the front wheels 6 down onto the ground to achieve this .

Referring now to Figures 5, 6 and 7, a second embodiment of the invention is shown in which parts common to the embodiments of Figures 1, 2, 3 and 4 are shown by like reference numerals but increased by 100. The embodiment of Figures 5 to 7 is based on a conventional four wheel drive articulated loader, rather than an agricultural tractor.

The main difference is in the base vehicle in which the vehicle body is now in two parts 102 and 103 connected by a vertical pivot 119 and steering is achieved by bending these two parts about this axis using hydraulic cylinders (not shown) . An important advantage of such a vehicle is that the loading bucket (not shown) of a conventional articulated loader can be easily detached from the loader arms 105 and replaced by the front roller 110 and its pivot 118. The hydraulic cylinders (not shown) that li t the bucket up and down can be used to push the front roller 110 down lifting the front wheels off the ground thus making the hinge axis 20 and hydraulic cylinder 24 of the first embodiment unnecessary.

Figure 7 shows how the steering by means of the front rollers is effected by a combination of the main vehicle steering and also a proportional rotation of the front roller

110 about the axis 118 relative to the front part of the vehicle

103.

Figure 7 indicates that the rear wheels are likely to be moved outwards from their normal position 109 so that they only just overlap the outer edges of the rear rollers 112. This makes space between wheel and axle to insert a shear off mechanism to prevent damage to vehicle and driver in the event that the rear driving wheels detonate a mine .

It is an important feature of both embodiments of the invention that the front roller, rear drive wheels and rear rollers are spaced well apart from each other so that an explosion under any one of these is unlikely to damage any other .

In both embodiments the rollers can be either a pair of pneumatic tyred wheels, as shown, or be made up of sets of narrower rollers independently sprung relative to each other.

It will be appreciated by persons skilled in the art that the above embodiment has been described by way of example only and not in any limitative sense, and that various alterations and modifications are possible without departure from the scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims .

Claims

1. A mine detonating vehicle comprising: -

a vehicle body;

at least one pair of forward wheels;

at least one pair of rear wheels located rearwardly of said forward wheels;

at least one first roller located forwardly of at least one said pair of forward wheels;

2. A vehicle according to claim 1, further comprising second pressing means for pressing at least one said second roller onto the ground.

3. A vehicle according to claim 1 or 2 , further comprising control means for fixing at least one said second roller in position relative to said vehicle body in the event of an explosion under a said rear wheel.

4. A vehicle according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein the or each said first and second roller is pivotable relative to said vehicle body about a respective substantially vertical pivot axis .

5. A vehicle according to claim 4, further comprising steering means for causing the or each said first and second roller to pivot about the corresponding said pivot axis .

6. A vehicle according to claim 5, wherein said steering means comprises at least one hydraulic cylinder.

7. A vehicle according to claim 4 or 5 , wherein the steering means is adapted to steer the or each said forward pair of wheels and the or each said first roller.

8. A vehicle according to any one of claims 4 to 7 , wherein said pivot axes are located such that all of said wheels and rollers in contact with the ground when the vehicle is in use roll about a single point when the vehicle is travelling around a curve .

9. A vehicle according to claim 8, wherein at least one said pivot axis is located substantially mid-way between the corresponding said roller and said rear wheels.

10. A vehicle according to claim 8, wherein said vehicle body comprises a first body part supporting said forward wheels and a second body part supporting said rear wheels, wherein said first and second body parts are pivotable relative to each other.

11. A vehicle according to claim 10, wherein at least one said first roller is pivotable relative to said first body part and at least one said second roller is pivotable relative to the second body part .

12. A vehicle according to any one of the preceding claims, further comprising a third pressing means for pressing at least one forward wheel onto the ground.

13 . A mine detonating apparatus substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying drawings .