Brushing – scrubbing – and general cleaning – Machines – Brushing
Reexamination Certificate
1999-08-10
2001-07-10
Till, Terrence R. (Department: 1744)
Brushing, scrubbing, and general cleaning
Machines
Brushing
C015S084000, C015S340400
Reexamination Certificate
active
06256827
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to surface cleaning vehicles and more particularly to utility type surface cleaning vehicles.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The removal of dirt and debris from streets, parking lots, airport runways, factory floors, and other similar paved surfaces, through the use of various types of street cleaning vehicles or factory sweeping vehicles, as may be the case, has been known for many years. For the sake of brevity, clarity and simplicity, such vehicles will be generally referred to in this document as surface cleaning vehicles. Conventional surface cleaning vehicles comprise a surface cleaning apparatus, such as a sweeping broom, a recirculating air type head, or a vacuum air head. Most commonly, such surface cleaning apparata are permanently mounted on a truck frame. Alternatively, such surface cleaning apparata are removably connected to a tractor, either securely attached to the three point hitch for direct turning with the tractor, or connected in freely pivoting relation to the towbar. The tractors being referred to are typically conventional unitary frame—or in other words are non-articulated—utility type tractors, manufactured by companies such as Ford, John Deere, Massey Ferguson, among others. Such conventional tractors are powered by an internal combustion engine that typically can produce about sixty-five to seventy horsepower.
Utility type surface cleaning vehicles have inherent cost and overall operational advantages over truck type surface cleaning vehicles in that the tractors can additionally be used to perform other tasks, such as ploughing snow, cutting grass, and so on. However, in spite of these advantages that are extremely important to the owners or operators of such vehicles, utility type surface cleaning vehicles are much less popular than truck type surface cleaning vehicles largely due to their lack of overall performance in prior art surface cleaning vehicles.
one significant performance related problem with utility type surface cleaning vehicles is that they tend to leave portions of a surface unswept by the gutter brooms as the vehicle tracks around corners, due to the improper geometric relationship between the gutter brooms, the front steerable wheels of the tractor and the surface cleaning apparatus—or in other words due to the placement of gutter brooms significantly ahead of the front wheels of the tractor. As can be seen in
FIG. 1
(Prior Art), the tractor
10
has two gutter brooms
12
that are disposed forwardly of the front end of the tractor
10
. As the tractor
10
tracks around the corner, it is necessary for the operator to look in a forward direction in order to watch the road in general and to view the gutter brooms
12
to ensure that the gutter brooms
12
are disposed in contacting relation with the curb
16
. It is also necessary for the operator to look in a sideward direction to view the curb
16
and the rear wheels
14
, in order to help maintain a proper steering relation with the curb
16
. Further, it is also necessary for the operator to look in a rearward direction to ensure that no debris has been missed. With such prior art utility type surface cleaning vehicles, it is difficult to watch in each of these three stated directions frequently enough to have the gutter brooms
12
maintain contact with the curb
16
more than about half of the time, thus causing a significant amount of debris close to the curb
16
to be missed by the gutter brooms
12
, which is unacceptable.
Another serious drawback with utility type surface cleaning vehicles is that the surface cleaning apparatus, the debris hopper, and the debris transfer apparatus are all positioned behind the tractor, and the gutter brooms are positioned in front of the tractor. Accordingly, the overall vehicle is quite long, which means that is difficult for such utility type surface cleaning vehicles to safely and properly manoeuver around objects on a city street, to accurately turn corners in a city block while maintaining one gutter broom properly against a curb, and so on.
Further, it is extremely difficult, to turn around such a utility type surface cleaning vehicle in a dead-end street, which is unacceptable.
Other utility type surface cleaning vehicles have the gutter brooms and the hopper located behind the tractor portion. Accordingly, it is necessary to look in a rearward direction to view the gutter brooms and the curb, which is very difficult, and even dangerous, considering it is necessary to look in a forward direction when driving.
It is therefore very important that utility type surface cleaning vehicles are as short as reasonably possible.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a utility type surface cleaning vehicle having a proper geometric relationship between the gutter brooms, the front steerable wheels of the tractor and the surface cleaning apparatus.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a utility type surface cleaning vehicle that has at least one gutter broom mounted thereon disposed rearwardly of said front limit of extent of the steerable front wheels.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a utility type surface cleaning vehicle that is less lengthy than prior art utility type surface cleaning vehicles.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention, there is disclosed a novel utility type surface cleaning vehicle comprising a unitary frame utility type tractor defining a longitudinal axis and having left and right driven rear wheels and at least one steerable front wheel and trailer connecting means. A debris hopper is removably connectable to the utility type tractor via the trailer connecting means. A surface cleaning apparatus is operatively connectable to the utility type tractor and connected in debris depositing relation via a debris transfer means to the debris hopper. At least one gutter broom is included, with each gutter broom being mounted on the utility type tractor for rotation about a respective substantially vertical gutter broom axis disposed rearwardly of the foremost portion of said at least one steerable front wheel and disposed forwardly of said left and right driven rear wheels.
Other advantages, features and characteristics of the present invention, as well as methods of operation and functions of the related elements of the structure, and the combination of parts and economies of manufacture, will become more apparent upon consideration of the following detailed description and the appended claims with reference to the accompanying drawings, the latter of which is briefly described hereinbelow.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1510880 (1924-10-01), Aitken
patent: 3011193 (1961-12-01), Schmidt et al.
patent: 3028616 (1962-04-01), Breneman
patent: 3184777 (1965-05-01), Norden
patent: 3203022 (1965-08-01), Clarke
patent: 3639936 (1972-02-01), Ashton
patent: 3676891 (1972-07-01), Murray et al.
patent: 3790981 (1974-02-01), Young
patent: 5005597 (1991-04-01), Popelier et al.
patent: 5010620 (1991-04-01), Young
patent: 5218737 (1993-06-01), Dansby et al.
patent: 5317783 (1994-06-01), Williamson
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