Bridgestone Corporation

Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Masaru Ishibashi

Tateo Muramatsu

Harumichi Yamazaki

Takeshi Tsubata

Kazumi Sasaki

An elastic endless crawler including an annular belt-shaped elastic crawler body, the crawler body includes a series of driven elements for operation of the crawler and a reference plane which passes through respective centers of the drive elements and extends in a longitudinal direction of the crawler, and a thickness of one side relative to the reference plane and a thickness of the other side relative to the reference plane are different from one another. The lengths between respective crawler body end surfaces facing in a crawler widthwise direction, and the reference lane are different from one another. A thickness of one side, which is shorter in length, of the crawler body is greater than that of the other side, which is longer in length, of the crawler body.

Elastic endless crawler

A rubber track assembly comprising a driving wheel, an idler wheel, an endless rubber track extending around the driving wheel and the idler wheel and having a plurality of rubber lugs formed on its outer circumference and a plurality of rubber guide projections formed on its inner surface, and a plurality of roller wheels arranged in contact with inner surface of the rubber track in a ground contact region thereof, each of the wheels has a pair of wheel portions formed at its opposite sides and spaced apart to be disposed at opposite sides of the guide projection for engaging the inner surface of the rubber track at the opposite sides of the guide projection. The rubber guide projection is provided with at least one low friction surface having a coefficient of friction lower than that of the rubber material of the rubber guide projection.

Rubber track assembly

An annular elastic track having sprocket-driven protrusions on the inner circumference and lugs on the outer circumference. The annular elastic track comprises a plurality of annular thin plates spaced radially from one another with a predetermined interval and embedded in layers in the track in its circumferential direction. The annular thin plates are a plurality of concentric annular plates having different diameters or a spirally formed single thin plate. Such an annular elastic track is used for vehicles as well as a monocycle comprising a flat plate-shaped cross-section, at least two external rollers arranged outside the annular elastic track for applying a load onto it, at least one internal roller arranged inside the annular elastic track to hold the track by these internal and external rollers therebetween, and crank device including pedals provided inside the annular elastic track for driving one of said external and internal rollers.

Annular elastic track

An SiO.sub.2 insulating layer is formed on an Si substrate, and an Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 insulating layer is formed on the SiO.sub.2 layer. A notch is formed in the Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 layer using a resist film as a mask. The SiO.sub.2 layer is etched using the Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 layer as a mask, thereby forming an opening larger than the notch cut in the SiO.sub.2 layer. As a result, the Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 layer extends over the opening in an overhanging manner. When As.sup.+ ions are implanted in the periphery of the notch of the Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 layer, the ion-implanted portion of the Si.sub.3 N.sub.4 layer is arcuated toward the base region. When a metal such as Ti is deposited on the arcuated portion, the metal is also deposited on the arcuated portion and the portion of the emitter region matching with the notch, thereby forming an emitter electrode portion.

Growing community of inventors

Yokohama, Japan

Masaru Ishibashi