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US 11,448,304 B2Granted
Pulley structure
AssigneeMitsuboshi Belting Ltd.
InventorsHayato Shimamura, Katsuya Imai, Ryosuke Dan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A pulley structure may be equipped with an outer rotating body, an inner rotating body, and a coil spring. The pulley structure has a cross section of the spring wire of the coil spring along a direction running along the rotational axis and parallel to the rotational axis being a trapezoidal shape, and the length of an inner-diameter-side portion in the rotational axis direction in the cross section being greater than the length of an outer-diameter-side portion in the rotational axis direction in the cross section.
Claims2
A pulley structure comprising:
- a cylindrical outer rotating body around which a belt is to be wound;
- an inner rotating body provided on the inside of the outer rotating body and relatively rotatable with respect to the outer rotating body around a common rotation axis with the outer rotating body;
- and
- a coil spring provided between the outer rotating body and the inner rotating body,
- wherein the pulley structure further comprises a lock mechanism configured such that further torsional deformation in a diameter expansion direction of the coil spring is restricted and the outer rotating body and the inner rotating body rotate integrally with the coil spring when an outer circumferential surface of a free part of the coil spring abuts against the outer rotating body due to diameter expansion of the coil spring,
- wherein the coil spring functions as a one-way clutch which is engaged with each of the outer rotating body and the inner rotating body due to torsional deformation in the diameter expansion direction to transmit torque between the outer rotating body and the inner rotating body when the inner rotating body relatively rotates with respect to the outer rotating body in a forward direction, and which slides with respect to at least one of the outer rotating body and the inner rotating body due to torsional deformation in a diameter reduction direction and does not transmit torque between the outer rotating body and the inner rotating body when the inner rotating body relatively rotates with respect to the outer rotating body in a reverse direction,
- wherein a spring wire of the coil spring has a trapezoidal shape in a cross-section along a direction passing through the common rotation axis and parallel to the common rotation axis, and has a rotation axis direction length Ti (mm) at an inner diameter side part on the cross-section longer than a rotation axis direction length To (mm) at an outer diameter side part on the cross-section,
- wherein the coil spring has a wire inclination where the outer diameter side part on the cross-section is an inclined surface inclined slightly, up to and including 1 degree, with respect to an outer diameter reference line parallel to the common rotation axis, and
- wherein, when a number of windings of the coil spring is N, the following expression (1) is satisfied:
- N×(Ti−To)/2<1 . . . (1).
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.