Self-steering damping railway truck
AssigneeSouth African Inventions Development Corporation
InventorHerbert Scheffel
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A railway truck with a load-bearing structure resiliently supported on two live-axle, self-steering wheelsets, axle bearings being provided on the wheelsets and damping elements being connected longitudinally between axle bearings on the same side of the longitudinal axis of the truck. The damping elements change length with constantly applied forces and transmit rapidly changing forces between the wheelsets with the attenuation of energy. Thus, the damping elements do not interfere with the self-steering ability of the wheelsets and act to counteract wheelset hunting. The wheelsets may be connected to couple any yawing movement of each wheelset in opposite sense to the other wheelset.
Claims8
A railway truck having a longitudinal axis in its direction of travel and including:
- (a) a load bearing structure;
- (b) two wheelsets each comprising a pair of wheels fast on an axle, the wheels having treads that are profiled and have a high effective conicity to generate steering forces on curved track by the conicity of the tread independently of the wheel flange;
- (c) axle bearing means on each wheelset;
- (d) axle box adaptor means secured to each axle bearing means;
- (e) resilient means suspending the load-bearing structure to the wheelsets through the axle box adaptor means and the axle bearing means to provide elastic constraints to yawing and lateral movements of each wheelset relatively to the load-bearing structure, the elastic constraints on each wheelset being lower than the steering forces generated by the high conicity tread on curved track whereby each wheelset is self-steering;
- (f) damping means on each side of the logitudinal axis of the truck, each damping means being pivotally connected between the axle box adaptor means of the wheelsets and acting longitudinally resistively to oppose changes in spacing between ends of the wheelsets on the same side of the longitudinal axis of the truck;
- and
- (g) means interconnecting the wheelsets to couple any yawing moment of each wheelset in opposite sense to the other wheelset on straight and curved track, said interconnecting means comprises two linkages which cross each other and which are connected to diagonally opposed axle bearing adapter means;
- (h) the interconnecting means and the damping means acting to generate hunting stabilizing creep forces.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.