System for laying a portable bridge
AssigneeMAN Technologie GmbH
InventorsHans-Norbert Wiedeck, Wolfgang Diefendahl
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A bridge-laying apparatus has a vehicle adapted to travel in a longitudinal direction and a longitudinally extending laying arm adapted to lay down and pick up bridges formed of at least one bridge section. A rigid link has an upper end pivoted on the laying arm and a lower end pivoted directly on the vehicle and an expansible main cylinder offset horizontally from the link has an upper end pivoted on the arm and a lower end pivoted directly on the vehicle. A pusher cylinder extending nonparallel to the main cylinder has a lower end pivoted on the vehicle and an upper end pivoted on the arm.
Claims9
A bridge-laying apparatus comprising:
- a vehicle adapted to travel in a longitudinal direction;
- a longitudinally extending laying arm adapted to lay down and pick up a bridge formed by at least one section;
- a rigid link having an upper end pivoted on the laying arm and a lower end pivoted directly on the vehicle;
- an expansible main cylinder offset horizontally from the link and having an upper end pivoted on the arm and a lower end pivoted directly on the vehicle;
- and
- a pusher cylinder extending nonparallel to the main cylinder and having a lower end pivoted on the vehicle and an upper end pivoted on the arm.
A method of operating bridge-laying apparatus having:
- a vehicle adapted to travel in a longitudinal direction and capable of carrying a stack of bridge sections lying in respective vertically spaced planes;
- a longitudinally extending laying arm adapted to lay down and pick up a bridge formed by at least one of the sections;
- a rigid link having an upper end pivoted on the laying arm and a lower end pivoted directly on the vehicle;
- an expansible main cylinder offset horizontally from the link and having an upper end pivoted on the arm and a lower end pivoted directly on the vehicle;
- and
- a pusher cylinder extending nonparallel to the main cylinder and having a lower end pivoted on the vehicle and an upper end pivoted on the arm, the method comprising the steps of sequentially:
- setting a length of the main cylinder such that the arm, link, main cylinder, and vehicle together form a parallelogrammatic linkage;
- setting the length of the pusher cylinder such that the arm is aligned with the plane of the uppermost bridge section;
- transferring the uppermost bridge section to the laying arm;
- advancing the laying arm with the pusher cylinder to a forwardly advanced laying position;
- extending a support strut hanging from the arm to a forward position and extending the support strut downward to support the arm directly on the ground ahead of the vehicle;
- extending the main cylinder and thereby pivoting down a front end of the arm and the bridge carried thereby until a front end of the bridge section carried by the arm engages an opposite bank of a declivity in front of the vehicle;
- retracting the support strut and swinging it back out of the way;
- further extending the main cylinder to set a rear end of the bridge on a near bank of the declivity;
- and
- disengaging the laying arm from the bridge.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.