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AssigneeWestinghouse Air Brake Company
InventorsJames E. Hart, Edward W. Gaughan, Jeffrey D. Reid, Vincent F. Troiani
Estimating the term…
A portable, microprocessor controlled single-car test unit for a railway freight brake control valve for automatically executing pressure manipulations to evaluate the operating conditions of the control valve. The pipe bracket portion is connected to a brake pipe, an auxiliary reservoir, an emergency reservoir, a brake cylinder retaining valve and a brake cylinder each being connected to a respective fluid passageway. The test unit accesses the fluid passageways at access ports, respectively connected to each passageway. Valves are utilized in the test unit to manipulate the pressure in the fluid passageways and pressure transducers measure fluid pressure in the passageways. The pressure transducers are controlled by a computer having a microprocessor connected to an input output device. The computer records and stores each pressure measurement, and calculates and stores the differences between selected pairs of the pressure measurements as well as elapsed time data for the measurements. The data is stored and outputted.
A portable, automatic single-car test unit for executing a predetermined series of pressure manipulations to evaluate the operating conditions of a railway freight brake control valve, said control valve being of the type having a pipe bracket portion, with a service portion and an emergency portion mounted thereto, said pipe bracket portion further being connected to a brake pipe, an auxiliary reservoir, an emergency reservoir and a brake cylinder, wherein a plurality of passageways are provided to said control valve for providing fluid communication from such brake pipe, such brake cylinder, such emergency reservoir and such auxiliary reservoir to respective ones of said service portion and said emergency portion, and wherein ports are provided for accessing such passageways, said test unit comprising:
A method for executing a predetermined series of pressure manipulations to evaluate the operating conditions of a railway freight brake control valve, said control valve being of the type having a pipe bracket portion, with a service portion and an emergency portion mounted thereto, said pipe bracket portion further being connected to a brake pipe, an auxiliary reservoir, an emergency reservoir and a brake cylinder, wherein a plurality of passageways are provided to said control valve for providing fluid communication from such brake pipe, such brake cylinder, such emergency reservoir, and such auxiliary reservoir to respective ones of said service portion and said emergency portion, said method comprising the steps of:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Component parts, details, or accessories of power brake systems not covered by groups B60T8/00, B60T13/00 or B60T15/00, or presenting other…:…
Other control devices or valves characterised by definite functions: with a quick braking action, i.e. with accelerating valves actuated by…
Arrangements of piping, valves in the piping, e.g. cut-off valves, couplings or air hoses: brake line couplings, air hoses and stopcocks
Devices for monitoring or checking brake systems; Signal devices: for railway vehicles
Term ended 15 Sep 2014 (estimated)
USPTO file history isn’t available for this patent, so only indexed dates are shown.
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to brake control valve devices for railway cars and more particularly to means adapted to such brake control valve devices for directly accessing fluid lines and conducting a series of evaluative pressure manipulations thereof.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 1 is a prior art schematic of a railway freight brake control valve showing the passageways running through the pipe bracket portion, the emergency portion and the service portion.
FIG. 2a is a perspective view of a pipe bracket portion having access ports provided thereon.
FIG. 2b is a perspective view of an access port plate.
As can be seen in prior art FIG. 1, air brake practice incorporates pipe brackets in freight brake control valves which have an emergency portion and a service portion mounted thereto. As can further be seen in FIG. 1, various fluid passageways connect the pipe bracket portion with the emergency portion and service portion, respectively. Thus, it is currently the practice in the air brake industry to provide the pipe bracket portion with a number of passageways therethrough.
Selected passageways within the pipe bracket portion open at respective access ports. The access ports may be on the pipe bracket portion directly or may be provided on a plate connected to the pipe bracket portion.
Referring first to FIG. 2a, the access ports are shown provided directly on the pipe bracket portion. The pipe bracket portion is preferably a single sided pipe bracket portion 36. The pipe bracket portion 36 is called single sided because the emergency portion and service portion are mounted on the same side or face thereof. As can be seen in the figure, the service portion is mounted upon a surface 48 and the emergency portion is mounted upon a surface 50, both preferably on the same access face 38 of the single sided pipe bracket portion 36.