Cushioned roller circle
AssigneeMarion Power Shovel Company, Inc.
InventorGeorge B. Baron
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A machine of the dragline, shovel, or crane type having a body rotatably mounted upon a base with a padded live roller circle interposed between the body and base to facilitate rotation of the body. The roller circle includes flat, segmental upper and lower rails with resilient and compressible pads between the rail segments and the respective body and base, and a roller cage between the rails having rollers which are generally cylindrical and in bearing contact with the rails, the rail segment pads permitting movement of the segments to distribute local loads to adjacent rollers. The rails are clamped to the body and base by means of yieldable clamping means, and the cage is guided in its circular travel path by yieldable guide means.
Claims17
In a machine such as an excavator or crane having an upper frame provided with an eccentrically disposed load centroid, rotatably mounted on a lower frame, an assembly for supporting said upper frame and other components mounted thereon on said lower frame comprising a lower circular rail consisting of a plurality of arcuate segments disposed in end to end relation secured to said lower frame, a cage having a plurality of rollers disposed in contact with an upper bearing surface of said lower rail, an upper rail consisting of a plurality of arcuate segments disposed in end to end relation secured to said upper frame, having a lower bearing surface in contact with said rollers, and padding consisting of an elastically deformable material interposed between at least one of said upper and lower rails and an adjacent upper or lower frame, said material having sufficient strength to support the design load imposed on said rollers, sufficient elasticity to permit vertical and horizontal displacement between each segment of said rail and said adjacent frame and a sufficiently low modulus of elasticity to effect a more uniform distribution of the load imposed on said rollers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.