Material or article handling – Wheel and wheel-type article handler and transporter – Opposed horizontally reciprocable engaging elements
Patent
1993-01-19
1994-08-09
Tyson, Karin L.
Material or article handling
Wheel and wheel-type article handler and transporter
Opposed horizontally reciprocable engaging elements
244 50, 180904, B60P 311
Patent
active
053360370
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
DESCRIPTION
The invention concerns a towing vehicle for maneuvering airplanes without a draw tongue, the chassis of which has a fork-shaped receiver space between the wheels of one wheel axle, in which an extendable and retractable gripping and retracting device that works together with a lifting mechanism is installed, by means of which the nose wheel of the plane can be grasped and can be pulled onto a scoop that can be raised and lowered relative to the chassis.
A towing vehicle of this construction type is known (DE-PS 33 18 077), which has three lifting scoops, each relatively narrow, that are mounted in tipping joints so that they can swing. One of the scoops is assigned to the front side of the nose wheel to be grasped, on the vehicle side end of the receiver space. The other two tipping scoops, however, are against the open end of the receiver space and thereby are assigned to the rear side of the nose wheel, and namely in the area of the base. In addition, the gripping device can be moved out of the fork-shaped receiver space toward the rear. Finally, additional clamping devices are present which are used on the nose wheel in the upper area of its periphery.
In this, it can be considered disadvantageous that the nose wheel is grasped and compressed and thus deformed at points along its periphery that do not correspond to its normal, usual position on the ground, so that undesirable stresses on the nose wheel can be caused. In addition, it is a disadvantage that during retraction of the nose wheel into the receiver space, the known gripper device first is driven considerably out of the receiver space, thereby extending beyond the limit of the rear side opening of the receiver space, which leads to increased technical effort for managing the gripper device mechanically and/or in terms of strength because of the considerable length of the lever arms that this entails.
The invention is based on the task of creating a towing vehicle of the construction type mentioned at the beginning, which has a simpler structure that is mechanically easier to manage with fewer components and largely prevents pinching the nose wheel and/or additional stress on it.
This task was solved by the invention in that a single scoop is present for support of the nose wheel in the area of the nose wheel load line of application and that the gripper device is limited in its extendibility to the length of the receiver space. Because of this, in the known towing vehicle, there is absolutely no support present in the area of the nose wheel load line of application, i.e. in that peripheral area of the nose wheel that normally rests on the ground. Much more so, there are forces that are exerted upwards diagonally to the center of the nose wheel by three lifting scoops that are designed as sort of clamping wedges, of which only the resultant of the line of application of nose wheel load is opposed, which in the end means a clamping stress on the nose wheel. In the object of the invention, the nose wheel rests on the single scoop practically completely in the same way as it would otherwise normally rest on the ground. Limiting the extendibility of the gripper device to the length of the receiver space results in observable, mechanically limited stresses which can be managed without great technical effort.
In particular, when the gripping point of the gripping and retracting device is preferably permitted to touch the nose wheel on the periphery above the axis of rotation, additional clamping devices are expendable, which additionally simplifies the structure. In addition, the advantage attained is that the gripping and retracting device is installed far from the ground and not, as in the pictured, known towing vehicle, near the receiver surfaces of the narrow tipping scoops there and thereby in the area of the ground, which can lead to touching the ground and possible damage.
In the object of an older suggestion (DE-OS 36 16 807), a single scoop was in fact already used, but had to be made (using a relatively expensive design) into a
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Bammel Michael
Curten Franz J.
Goldhofer Fahrzeugwerk GmbH & Co.
Mattix Carla
Tyson Karin L.
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