Wheel substitutes for land vehicles – Endless belt having nonmetallic track or tread – Track formed of endless flexible belt
Reexamination Certificate
2001-04-10
2002-11-05
Morano, S. Joseph (Department: 3617)
Wheel substitutes for land vehicles
Endless belt having nonmetallic track or tread
Track formed of endless flexible belt
C305S173000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06474756
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention relates to a structure of a rubber crawler belt, and particularly relates to an endless rubber crawler belt attached to a track-laying vehicle including construction equipment such as a bulldozer and a hydraulic shovel, and having drive protrusions, which are driven by a drive sprocket, in an inner circumference and having a lug on an outer circumference.
BACKGROUND ART
The rubber crawler belts for track-laying vehicles, in which metal cores are embedded at fixed intervals in endless rubber belts and each tooth of drive sprockets is meshed with each metal core to thereby drive each core, are conventionally used. However, when the crawler belts are replaced due to abrasion or the like, and the old ones are cut to be transported for recycling, there is the disadvantage of the core metals making the cutting difficult to thereby make recycling difficult. As the means for eliminating the above disadvantage, there is a rubber crawler belt without core metals. The examples of this rubber belt are disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 6-24366 and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-53037.
Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 6-24366 discloses an endless rubber crawler belt in which rubbers are stacked on both faces with a polyester cord as a core layer, which is intended for snow mobiles. Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-53037 discloses a rubber crawler belt for snow vehicles, in which rubbers are stacked on both faces of a core material composed by high-tensile synthetic fiber and the like, with a rubber hardness of a lug on a tread face side being large at the tip end portion and the hardness gradually decreasing. The lug patterns in both cases are in parallel at predetermined intervals in a lateral direction, and are provided with driving protrusions.
FIG. 9
is a schematic side view of a traveling unit
100
and a rubber crawler belt
20
such as a conventional construction vehicle. The traveling unit
100
includes a drive sprocket
22
, an idler wheel
24
, rollers
30
and a track frame
25
. A rubber belt
2
of the rubber crawler belt
20
is wound around the traveling unit
100
.
FIG. 6
is a side view showing a structure of the rubber crawler belt
20
. In
FIG. 6
, drive protrusions
3
are formed at predetermined intervals on an inner circumferential side of the endless rubber belt
2
, and lugs
21
are provided on an outer circumferential ground-contact face side. The drive sprocket
22
is provided with sprocket pins
23
on an outer circumferential portion at the same intervals as the drive protrusions. The sprocket pins
23
are engaged with the drive projections
3
to transmit driving force to the rubber crawler belt
20
.
FIG. 7
shows the relationship between the rubber crawler belt
20
and the rollers
30
. In
FIG. 7
, the roller
30
is constructed by connecting a pair of rollers
31
and
31
, which are provided across the drive protrusion
3
of the rubber crawler belt
20
, with a body portion
32
. The width of the roller
30
is close to the entire width of the rubber belt
2
.
FIG. 8
shows an example of a pattern of the lugs
21
provided on an outer circumferential surface of the rubber belt
2
. According to this example, the lugs
21
are formed from a center portion of the rubber belt
2
to a right and left end portion to alternately extend diagonally in a circumferential direction. The left and right lugs
21
are placed so as to be displaced a half pitch.
In the structures of the rubber crawler belts disclosed in the aforesaid Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 6-24366 and Japanese Patent Laid-open No. 2000-53037, the lower rollers drop between the adjacent lugs and flutter during the travel on a road surface, thus causing the disadvantage of offering poor riding quality. In the rubber crawler belt with the lug pattern as shown in
FIG. 8
, the end portions of the lugs in the center portion of the width direction of the rubber belt are separated from each other, whereby rocking motion occurs to cause vibrations during travel, thus causing the disadvantage of offering poor riding quality. Further, when the rubber belt is wound around the drive sprocket and the idler wheel, stress concentrates on the end portions, thus causing the fear of breakage.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is made in view of the above described disadvantages, and its object is to provide a rubber crawler belt with excellent riding quality and high durability without the fear of breakage.
In order to attain the above-described object, a first aspect of a rubber crawler belt according to the present invention includes
an endless rubber belt wound around a traveling unit,
a plurality of drive protrusions formed on the rubber belt at predetermined intervals in a circumferential direction of a center portion in a width direction of the inner circumferential side of the rubber belt, and each for meshing with each pitch of a drive sprocket of the traveling unit, and
a lug provided on an outer circumferential side of the rubber belt and having a predetermined pattern,
with a plurality of core wires being embedded inside the rubber belt, and is characterized in that
the pattern of the lug has
a central lug portion provided to continuously extend around a center portion in a width direction of the outer circumference of the rubber belt, in a waveform, and
a plurality of branch lug portions each having a predetermined width and provided from the central lug portion toward left and right end portions of the rubber belt to be away therefrom diagonally in a circumferential direction,
an interval between the branch lug portions adjacent to each other is the same as an interval between the adjacent drive protrusions, in the circumferential direction of the rubber belt, and
a plurality of branch lug portions provided at a right end portion side and a plurality of branch lug portions provided at a left end portion side are arranged to be displaced one half of the interval between the drive protrusions in the circumferential direction of the rubber belt.
According to the above configuration, since the continuous central lug portion is provided, the amount of rocking motion during travel is decreased, thus reducing the vibration to an operator to a large extent. Further, when the rollers move on the inner circumferential surface of the rubber belt, the area of the ground contact portion between the lug and the road surface always becomes constant. Accordingly, the rigidity of the rubber belt becomes almost constant, whereby drop is decreased when the rollers pass, thus drastically improving riding quality.
Further, in the rubber crawler belt, the predetermined width of the branch lug portion may gradually decrease from an area near the central lug portion toward the left and right end portions.
According to the above configuration, the width of the groove portion between the adjacent branch lugs gradually increases from the area near the center portion in the lateral direction toward the end portion. As a result, earth sheared and caught in the groove portion easily falls off, when the groove portion is wound around the drive sprocket or the idler wheel. Accordingly, when the groove portion contacts the ground once again, it easily digs into the ground surface, thus preventing skids and reduction in tractive force.
Further, in the rubber crawler belt, a groove portion may be formed between the branch lug portions adjacent to each other, and
an end portion of the groove portion, which is in contact with the central lug portion, may be placed within a plane of outer-circumferential-side projection of the drive protrusion provided on the inner circumferential side of the rubber belt.
According to the above configuration, when the rubber crawler belt is wound around the drive sprocket or the idler wheel and thereby a bending force works, distortion is dispersed and the winding form is closer to a circle. In addition, stress at the tip end portion of the groove portion is reduced, thus increasing meshing efficiency of the crawler belt and dive spro
Hori Kazutoshi
Kimoto Kenzo
Tamaru Masatake
Watanabe Hiroaki
Armstrong Westerman & Hattori, LLP
Komatsu Ltd.
Morano S. Joseph
Nguyen Long Bae
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