Railways – Traction – Cable
Patent
1987-04-03
1988-11-08
Walton, George L.
Railways
Traction
Cable
74 8915, 744248R, 1041731, B61B 1206
Patent
active
047827610
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a cable tensioning device for ski lifts or aerial cableways of the kind comprising an endless transporting cable extending between two rotatable wheels mounted on posts or carriers, at least one of the wheels being movable by the fact that its associated carrier is slideably movable backwards and forwards in relation to a fixed, elongated foundation in order to continuously keep the cable properly tensioned.
STATE OF THE ART
It is preferred to drive the transport cable, in constructions of the above described kind, by means of the wheel being included in the bottom station of the construction, whereas the wheel being included in the mountain station is arranged to idle (although also per se the opposite arrangement is conceivable). It is not rare that the distance between the bottom station and the mountain station is very large and it may amount to 700-1000 m or more. A transport cable of this length is in practice subject to very large variations in length, partly in the form of a continuously progressing lengthening caused by compression and stretching thereof, partly in the form of temporary shortenings and lengthenings respectively due to temporary variations in temperature. To compensate these variations in length and to keep the cable properly tensioned, some kind of cable tensioning device has to be used that continuously moves one of the two cable wheels to positions wherein the cable is not slack.
Previously known cable tensioning devices for this purpose have comprised either counter-weight or hydraulic cylinder piston arrangements. A great drawback in the last-mentioned are however that the stroke of the pistons included in the hydraulic cylinders in question is too small to cover the distance of movement of the movable wheel without lengthy re-connections of a number of distance pieces. In counter-weight arrangements the position of the counterweight must be roughly adjusted at recurrent occasions since the counterweight has a space for heightwise movement that is smaller than the distance of movement that is necessary for the movable cable wheel.
SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTIVE CONCEPT
The present invention aims to remove the above drawbacks in the previously known cable tensioning devices and to create a cheap, simple cable tensioning device that can cover the entire necessary distance of movement of the cable wheel in question also at very large cable lengths. This is obtained, in accordance with the characteristics of the invention, therein that the wheel carrier in question by means of at least one nut device is connected to a suitably rotatable screw and that a tension sensing device is associated to a power source for causing a rotating relative movement between the screw and the nut device in order to, when a change in tension occurs, actuate the power source and to effect said relative movement between the screw and the nut device and in this way move the carrier with its associated wheel a distance along the foundation corresponding to the actual tensional change.
SHORT DESCRIPTION OF THE ATTACHED DRAWINGS
In the drawings
FIG. 1 is a simplified perspective view illustrating a valley or bottom station and a cable tensioning device according to the invention included therein,
FIG. 2 is a partly sectioned side view showing a carriage included in the device
FIG. 3 a plan view of the device, and
FIG. 4 an enlarged detail in the device according to the invention.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF A PREFERRED EMBODIMENT OF THE INVENTION
In FIG. 1 1 denotes an endless transport cable being laid around two rotatable wheels 2 of which one, included in a bottom station, is shown in FIG. l, whereas the other, included in a mountain station, is not shown in the drawings. Of these two wheels the one shown in FIG. 1 can be driven by means of a power source 3, for instance an electric motor and a gear. The wheel 2 is mounted on a carrier denoted in its entirety with 4, in the example shown consisting of a post on whose upper end the wh
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Liftbyggarna AB
Walton George L.
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