The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 14, 1999
Filed:
Dec. 09, 1996
Honda Giken Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
A crawler-belt vehicle is a half crawler vehicle having front wheels furnished with tires, and crawlers on a rear wheel side composed of crawler belts extending between intermediate wheels and rear wheels. The front wheels are larger in diameter than the intermediate wheels and the rear wheels and, hence, have a large ground-contact surface area. Thus, while the vehicle is running on snow, the front wheels are not apt to sink in the snow to a greater extent with the result that the turning characteristic and breakthrough characteristic of the vehicle can be improved. The intermediate wheels may be set to toe in so as to prevent detachment of the crawler belts which would otherwise occur when the sub-beams are slightly flexed or deformed in a lateral outward direction under loads applied thereto while the vehicle is traveling at high speeds on the snow. In order to reduce side slips of the crawler belts, an intermediate line extending parallel to, and passing substantially intermediately between, an axle centerline of the intermediate wheels and an axle centerline of the rear wheels is arranged to meet with a turning center of the right front wheel, and a turning center of the left front wheel at the same point.