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US 9,428,198 B2Granted
Monorail vehicle apparatus with gravity-augmented contact load
AssigneeSolarCity Corporation
InventorsJohn S. Camp, Benjamin D. Sumers, Ryan P. Feeley
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AssigneeSolarCity Corporation
InventorsJohn S. Camp, Benjamin D. Sumers, Ryan P. Feeley
Estimating the term…
Apparatus and method for gravity-augmented preload of drive wheels in a monorail vehicle travelling along a guide rail with bearing and contact surfaces that are non-parallel with the gravity vector. The vehicle defines a pivot location against the bearing surface and a constraint point on the contact surface for engaging the rail on the bearing and contact surfaces, respectively. The vehicle is mounted so its center of gravity is at a rear longitudinal offset rrl from the pivot location and a vertical offset rvert from the guide rail. A force and moment balance thus created result in a normal load on a drive wheel engaged with the bearing surface at the pivot location, where the load value exceeds a standard normal load generated by the mass of the monorail vehicle alone.
A monorail system producing gravity-augmented load on a drive wheel, comprising:
A method for augmenting normal load by the placement of a center of gravity in a monorail vehicle traveling along a rail having a bearing surface and a contact surface, said method comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.