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US 10,500,896 B2Granted
Flexible wheel assembly
OwnerPaul Catalanoinventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A wheel assembly comprising a wheel disk and a tread member disposed around the wheel disk. The wheel disk can have a substantially conical shape when in an unloaded state, but be flexible such that it can deform under load to optimize and/or maximize contact area between the tread member and a driving surface.
Claims17
A wheel assembly, comprising:
- a wheel disk, said wheel disk being rotatable about an axis and having a central portion centered about said axis, an intermediate portion extending radially outward from said central portion at an angle relative to said axis in a first direction, and a rim portion extending from said intermediate portion, said rim portion being bent relative to said intermediate portion toward said axis in a second direction;
- and
- a tread member coupled with wheel disk, said tread member being a loop disposed around said rim portion;
- wherein said rim portion and tread member are pitched at an angle relative to said axis when unloaded;
- wherein said wheel disk is flexible and resilient such that it deforms under load to orient said rim portion and tread member parallel to said axis across a contact area with a driving surface and returns to its unloaded shape at other portions of said wheel disk that are not in contact with the driving surface;
- and
- wherein said wheel disk has a tread flange extending from said rim portion, and edges of said tread member are inserted into notches between said tread flange and other portions of said wheel disk.
4 more elements
A wheel assembly, comprising:
- a wheel disk, said wheel disk being rotatable about an axis and having a tread flange extending around an outer rim of said wheel disk;
- and
- a tread member coupled with said wheel disk, said tread member being a loop disposed around said tread flange with edges positioned into notches between said tread flange and other portions of said wheel disk,
- wherein said tread flange and tread member are pitched at an angle relative to said axis when unloaded, and
- wherein said wheel disk is flexible and resilient such that it deforms under load to orient said tread flange and tread member parallel to said axis across a contact area with a driving surface and returns to its unloaded shape at other portions of said wheel disk that are not in contact with the driving surface.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.