Bridgestone Corporation

Shingo Sugihara

Kenji Tateishi

Takashi Mizusawa

Shuichi Matsuo

Shinji Uchida

Hitoshi Akiyama

A crawler traveling apparatus according to the present disclosure includes an endless rubber crawler, a drive wheel, a tension wheel, and a sensor which can acquire load information related to a load that the tension wheel receives from the rubber crawler. The rubber crawler includes an endless crawler belt and a plurality of cores, each core including a pair of core projections. The tension wheel abuts an inner surface of the rubber crawler at least, in a crawler width direction, at any of a position between the pair of core projections and both outer positions of the pair of core projections to be rotated following the rubber crawler, and the sensor can acquire tension load information in a crawler thickness direction that the tension wheel receives from the inner surface of the rubber crawler as the load information.

Crawler traveling apparatus, crawler monitoring system, crawler traveling vehicle and crawler monitoring method

A crawler includes a crawler main body (a rubber crawler main body ()), a tensile body (), guide protrusions (), and flat surfaces (). The tensile body () is provided with a flat portion () that is arranged along a width direction of the crawler main body and a slanting portion () that is slanted and arranged at a width direction outer side of the crawler main body relative to the flat portion (). The guide protrusions () are formed at an inner peripheral face of the crawler main body at a width direction middle portion of the crawler main body. The flat surfaces () are formed at the width direction outer sides of the crawler main body relative to the guide protrusions (). Turning wheels (a driving wheel (), an idling wheel () and rolling wheels ()) provided at a vehicle roll on the flat surfaces (). In a linear region of the crawler main body as seen in a side view of the crawler main body, if a thickness from an imaginary plane projected from the flat portion () in the width direction of the crawler main body to an end edge at a crawler main body width direction outer side of the slanting portion () is represented by L, then a result of subtracting a turning direction length of the crawler main body at the flat portion () from a turning direction length of the crawler main body at the slanting portion () is less than 2&#x3c0;L.

Crawler

A crawler includes crawler body formed by an elastic body shaped into an endless loop, a tensile body embedded in the crawler body and wound around a circumferential direction of the crawler body, guide projections formed at an inner circumferential surface of a width direction central portion of the crawler body and spaced apart in the circumferential direction of the crawler body, a flat face, upon which a rotating wheel provided at a vehicle rolls, forming an inner circumferential surface further toward a width direction outer side of the crawler body than the guide projections and an inclined face, upon which the rotating wheel rolls, inclined from an outer side end portion of the flat face in a crawler body width direction such that a thickness of the crawler body gradually increases toward the width direction outer side and circumferential inner side of the crawler body.

Provided are a mold allowing smooth removal of a molded article therefrom without deforming the molded article, and a method of producing the molded article using the mold. The mold includes a first mold piece (A), a second mold piece (B), and a plurality of third mold pieces (C). One of the first mold piece (A) and the second mold piece (B) has a protrusion cavity surface () that protrudes toward the third mold piece (C) from a mating surface () to contact with the third mold piece (C) and shapes an external profile of the molded article (Ma) together with a cavity surface () of the third mold piece (C) when the mold pieces are clamped with each other.

Mold and method of producing molded article using the mold

A rubber crawler that has a specified rotation direction. includes a crawler body, rubber projections and lugs. The lugs project out from an outer peripheral face, extend at an angle to the crawler peripheral direction from an inner side end portion toward the crawler width direction outer side and toward an opposite side to a crawler rotation direction with a larger angle at an acute angle side with respect to the crawler peripheral direction on the crawler width direction outer side than on the central line side; have inner side end portions of lugs adjacent to each other in the crawler width direction respectively overlapping a single projection of the projections, and are disposed at positions separated in the crawler width direction with the inner side end portions adjacent to each other in the crawler width direction respectively overlapping each other when viewed along the crawler width direction.

A rubber crawler having a specified rotation direction includes a crawler body and plural lugs. The plural lugs are provided at the crawler body, and extend at an angle to a crawler peripheral direction from an end portion on a central line side toward a crawler width direction outer side and toward an opposite side to a crawler rotation direction. In a cross-section of the lugs taken along the crawler peripheral direction, an angle formed between each apex side portion of tread-in-side wall faces on the crawler rotation direction side and an outer peripheral face is 90 degrees or greater, and is smaller than an angle formed between each apex side portion of a kick-out-side wall faces on the opposite side to the crawler rotation direction and the outer peripheral face.

A rubber crawler includes: a rubber belt serving as an example of an endless rubber body entrained around plural wheels; plural rubber projections that are formed at the rubber belt at intervals around a crawler peripheral direction of the rubber belt, that project toward an inner peripheral side of the rubber belt, and that limit movement of the wheels in a crawler width direction through contact; and at least one metal member embedded in each rubber projection, the at least one metal member raising a rigidity of the rubber projection in the crawler width direction, and including a portion that is exposed from the rubber projection.

Rubber crawler and rubber crawler manufacturing method

Rubber crawler

A coreless rubber crawler track has an endless rubber elastic body (), steel cords () embedded in the longitudinal direction of the elastic body, rubber protrusions () formed at a constant interval from the inner peripheral surface toward the longitudinal direction of the elastic body, and rubber lugs formed on the outer peripheral surface. Bias cords () are arranged on the outer peripheral side of the steel cords () so as to extend to the lateral right and left in the directions opposite from each other. Both bias cords () are overlapped on each other over a width of 10 mm or more directly under the rubber protrusions. With such an arrangement, torsional rigidity and lateral rigidity of the rubber crawler track are improved and, even when the rubber crawler track is passed over sprockets etc., bending rigidity is not high and a tooth skip phenomenon is suppressed.

Coreless rubber crawler track

A rubber crawler track having less wear at its left and right end portions to improve its durability. The rubber crawler track has steel cordsembedded in the longitudinal direction of the track and has a rubber lugformed on the outer periphery side thereof. The rubber crawler track is constructed from three kinds of rubbers that are an inner peripheral side rubber (a), an outer peripheral side rubber (b), and an edge rubber (c) at the left and right of the rubber crawler track. The edge rubber (c) is a rubber layer having the highest hardness degree. The ground contact side, inner peripheral side and ends in the width direction have different kinds of rubber, and the edge rubber (c) having excellent wear resistance with a hardness degree of 72 (JIS A) or greater is placed in particular at the machine body side end of the rubber crawler track because of the significant wear at this location.

Structure of rubber crawler track

The present invention provides a crawler in which, due to alteration of a shape of rubber projections which mesh with a sprocket, even when earth, sand and the like has been deposited at an inner peripheral surface of the crawler, damage to the concerned rubber projections will not be incurred. It is a core-less crawler track at an inner peripheral surface of which rubber projections for driving are formed with a certain pitch. In side view, the rubber projections form a substantially triangular shape provided with a drive side inclination surface Pa and a brake side inclination surface Pb. The inclination surfaces of this rubber projection are divided into the drive side inclination surface Pa and the brake side inclination surface Pb. Steps D are formed at both the inclination surfaces. Base side (bottom step) inclination angles X are set with an inclination angle XB of a brake side inclination surface Pba larger than an inclination angle XA of a drive side inclination surface Paa, and top side (top step) inclination angles Y are set with an inclination angle YA of a drive side inclination surface Pab larger than an inclination angle YB of a brake side inclination surface Pbb.

Core-less crawler track and rubber projections therefore

A rubber crawler running device which includes a drive wheel connected to a drive shaft of a vehicle body, an idler wheel, and a rubber crawler having rubber projections formed on an inner peripheral surface thereof at predetermined intervals, the drive wheel and the idler wheel being disposed substantially horizontally, the rubber crawler being wound around the drive wheel and the idler wheel and contacting the running surface, wherein the drive wheel is formed so that engaging teeth thereof which engage with the rubber projections are exposed at right and left sides, and further comprising a guide skirt body fixed to the vehicle body and disposed at transverse direction outer sides of the drive wheel at a portion at which the rubber crawler is wound around the drive wheel, with a gap being kept between the drive wheel and the guide skirt body.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Shingo Sugihara