US2048280A - Underframe for carriages - Google Patents

Description

July 21,1936. 54m 29 18280 UNDERFRAME FOR CARRIAGES" Filed July 7. 1933 Patented July 21*, 1936 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE UNDERFBAME FOR OARRIAGES Steffen Mob], Copenhagen, Denmark Application July '1, 1933, Serial No. 679,431-

' In Germany July 8, 1932 Claims.

5 to be used partly as a unit under a carriage throughout the entire length of the same, and partly as two or more bogies situated below the body of the carriage and adapted, perhaps, to rotate sideways relatively thereto. The constantly increasing carrying capacity required during recent years for such carriages, whether the same are to run on ordinary roads or on railroads, necessitates an increase in the number of pairs of wheels in the underframe or underframes, partly with a view to the carrying capacity of the individual wheel and partly with a view to the carrying capacity of the roads or the supporting rails.

The present invention has for its object to provide a more simple and suitable construction of such multi-axle underframes than those known heretofore, and according to the invention this object is to be attained by the feature that on each side'of the frame (the carriage) the two outerpairs of wheels, i. e. the foremost and the rearmost wheels, are resting in one arm of a two-armed lever supported by the frame and adapted to swing in a vertical plane relatively thereto, and having its other arm linked to one end of a spring supporting the adjoining intermediate wheel of the frame. The two extreme pairs of wheels of the frame are thus not directly spring-loaded but. indirectly, i. e. through the said levers by means of the springs of the intermediate wheels.

By arrangements known for instance from locomotive underframes 'such an under-frame with more than two pairs of wheels may be caused to behave externally, like one single pair stance not precluded by theuse of the underframe as a bogie under a carriage body, if the 50 latter rests on the frame through an ordinary spherical head at the centre of the bogie. The

possibility of an irregular pitching of the bogiewill on the contrary be precluded, if the weight of the carriage body be transmitted to the bogie 55 partly through a spherical head at a certain distance from the centre thereof (towards the front or rear end), and partly through a slide or roller surface-at a certain distance from the centre of the bogie but to the other side thereof. Hereby the advantage is evidently simultaneously at- 5 tained that the load will be distributed more uniformly than otherwise over the frame of the bogie, whereby the bending moments in the same will be reduced. Also other arrangements than the one described, but in accordance with the frame a supporting on each of its long sides 25 two bearing brackets b pointing downward. These bracket bearings form bearings each for one of the two-armed levers 0 c with pivot pin d. In each of these two-armed levers the arm c that points away from the centre of the bogie 30 supports one of the front or rear wheels e, e of the underfram'e, and the inner arm 0 is by means of a link bar f linked to one end of a plate spring 9 which supportsthe bearing h for an intermediate wheel i.- The two lever arms c and c are 35 given such lengths that the load on the frame a is distributed uniformly on all three wheels e, e and i, and it is seen directly that all these wheels are uniformly spring-loaded by one single springg common to all three wheels. 40

A modified form of the construction shown in Fig. 1 is illustrated in Fig.2, in which two directly spring-loaded intermediate wheels 1', i are used. The two springs g, g have then, in known manner, their adjacent ends linked to a small balance a, which is pivoted on a bracket supported by the frame a. Provided that the lever arms c and c be suitably selected, this arrangement will ensure apreferably uniform loading of all four wheels, even if the road surface (the track) be rough. The arrangement may be further varled by the insertion of still more intermediate e and i will be uniformly loaded. All the shafts together will further act as one single shaft, 1. e. the above mentioned stability with respect to arbitrary "pitching of the frame a of the underframe will be lacking. If desired, however, this stability can be secured simply by preventing the possibility of any rocking motion for one of the said equalizing balances 7, which in practice will mean that one of these balances is to be omitted entirely, the two adjoining spring ends being then hinged directly to the frame a. If this is done for instance in the construction shown in Fig. 2, it will be seen directly that the entire underframe will act as if it were only composed of two pairs of separately spring-loaded wheels. Thereby a full stability against any arbitrary pitching will be attained.

Another possibility of attaining such a stability without deviating from the principal idea underlying the invention appears from Fig. 3, in which the underframe shown in Fig. 1 is supplemented by a fourth pair of wheels is supported directly by two springs I hinged independently to the frame a. Such an arrangement, which consequently will act as if two separately and directly springloaded wheel axles were provided, will for instance be very suitable for shunting locomotives and similar carriages of a very compact construction. I

The railroad carriage shown in Fig. 4 is a construction of the arrangement shown in Fig. 1

and consists of a frame a fitted at each end with an incision a1 and at the centre with'an incision m, which latter extends all the -way down to the bottom edge of the frame, but is closed thereby means of splice bars n. At each end of the frame a bearing bracket an is bolted thereto for the lever with unequal arms Cl, 02 supporting the end wheels e. Besides, I have here like in Fig. 1 the link members I, the spring 9, the bearing h and the intermediate wheel i. The central wheel i with its axle can be brought into position by being inserted from below, after. the splice bars 1; have been removed, and the two end wheels can be removed after the bearing bracket a: has been loosened, and the connection between the link member and the spring 9 has been removed.

The connections required for maintaining constant the mutual horizontal distances between the wheel axles are omitted in all the figures of the drawing, since such connections are well known as a substitute for the fixed guides for the axle boxes ordinarily used on railroad bogies.

In a bogie like the one here referred to it is possible to use a one-sided braking on the wheels supported by the levers as the brake reactions on the axle are taken up by the levers c Such a one-sided braking offers constructional advantages, for instance that the length of the bogie frame a can be made essentially shorter than the'length required when a two-sided braking is used, and the one-sided braking requires merely the wheel axles to be so heavily dimensioned that they can resist the bending moment to which they are exposed in consequence of the one-sided brake pressure.

The arrangement shown in Fig. 5 of the levers c a relatively to the wheels, 1. e. with the levers disposed inside of the wheels, is suitable for locomotives, as the springs of the latter are usually situated inside of the wheels.

The arrangement shown in Fig. 6, on the con- 'trary, is suitable for railway carriages, because or railroad track can only form small angles with the horizontal plane of the frame a.

As to the constructions shown for bogies fo railroad carriages, it should be noted that the desirability of fitting such bogies with a greater number of axles than the two that are ordinarily used at the present time has lately been increased considerably, after the, successful experiments made with the use of automobile wheels (wheels with inflated tyres) for railroad traflic. Such wheels are in factunable to transmit the same great pressures to the rails as the ordinary railroad wheels of steel.

When using the underframe here referred to for automobiles one or more of the pairs of wheels of the bogie may be driven by the motor, if desired. For driving one of the end axles the arrangement of the levers 0 c shown in Fig. 7 may be suitable, provided that the axle casing be journalled in the levers by means of inserted rubber bushings of known nature, which allow the requisite universal motion. If on the other hand the underframe is arranged in such a manner that the end wheels are merely supporting wheels, it will in some cases be preferable to steer the same together with the other steering wheels as indicated in Fig. 8, as otherwise for three or more consecutive axles for non-steered wheels, owing to the skidding that cannot be avoided in such a construction, there might occur a greater wear of rubber than desirable or permissible from a trafiic point of view. The steering of the drivingwheels shown in Fig. 7 may also be effected in known manner, even if the construction might thereby become somewhat more complicated.

Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said invention and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I claim is:

1. In an underframe for carriages having a group of spring loaded wheels on each side thereof adjacent a longitudinal frame member, the combination of two rigid levers for each group, each directly supported at one end by the bearing of one of the outermostwheels of the group, a spring connected to the other end of each of the said levers and carried practically at its center by the bearing of an intermediate wheel of the group, means pivoting each lever intermediate its ends to the adjacent frame member in such a manner that its movement is restricted to a longitudinal vertical plane, whereby each outermost wheel bearing is pivotally guided in a vertical circular arc.

2. In an underframe for carriages having a group of three spring loaded wheels on each side thereof adjacent a longitudinal frame member, the combination of two rigid levers for each group, each directly supported at one end by the bearing of one of the outermost wheels of the group, a spring joining the other ends of each of the said levers and carried practically at its center by the bearing of the center wheel of the group, means pivoting each lever intermediate its ends to the adjacent frame member in such a manner that its movement is restricted to a longitudinal vertical plane, whereby each outermost wheel bearing is pivotally guided in a vertical circular arc.

3. In an underframe for carriages having a group of four spring loaded wheels on each side thereof, adjacent a longitudinal frame member, the combination of two rigid levers for each group each directly supported at one end by the bearing of one of the outermost wheels of the group, a spring connected to the other end of each of the said levers and carried practically at its center by the bearing of an intermediate wheel of the group, means pivoting each lever intermediate its ends to the adjacent frame member in such a manner that its movement is restricted to a longitudinal vertical plane, whereby each outermost wheel bearing is pivotally guided in a vertical circular arc, the two said intermediate wheelcarried springs having their remaining ends adjacent and directly connected to the longitudinal frame member.

4. In an underframe for carriages having 'a group of four spring loaded wheels on each side thereof adjacent a longitudinal frame member, the combination of two rigid levers for each group, each directly supported at one end by the hearing of one of the outermost wheels of the group, a spring connected to the other end of each of the said levers and carried practically at its center by the bearing of an intermediate wheel of the group, means pivoting each lever intermediate its ends to the adjacent frame member in such a manner that its movement is restricted to a longitudinal vertical plane, whereby each outermost wheel bearing is pivotally guided in a vertical circular arc, and a lever pivoted at its center to the frame and having two equal arms, the two remaining and adjacent ends of the two springs carried by the intermediate wheels being each connected to one end of said last mentioned lever.

5. In an underframe for carriages having a group of spring loaded wheels on each side thereof adjacent a longitudinal frame member, the combination of two rigid levers for each group, each directly supported at one end by the bearing of one of the outermost wheels of the group, a spring connected to the other end of each of said levers and carried practically at its center by the bearing of an intermediate wheel of the group, means pivoting each lever intermediate its ends to the adjacent frame member in such a manner that its movement is restricted to a 1ongitudinal vertical plane, whereby each outermost wheel bearing is pivotally guided in a vertical circular arc, and an additional spring secured to the frame on each side, a wheel supporting the said spring and positioned next to one of the above named outermost wheels for the purpose of preventing any irregular pitching of the frame.

STEFFEN MGHL.

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