Guide Trough Oblique Surface for High-Speed Energy Chain Stability
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing line guiding systems face challenges in maintaining high displacement speeds and accelerations without line breakouts, especially in dynamic environments like portal robots, due to difficulties in maintaining the desired course and susceptibility to disruptions.
Innovation Solution
A line guiding system with a guide trough featuring obliquely extending guide surfaces on the trough floor to counteract deviations of the energy guide strands, ensuring they remain on course by creating a height difference that acts as an obstacle against undesired deviations, combined with bearing surfaces that can be obliquely or horizontally oriented to facilitate smooth movement.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If conventional guide troughs are used for high-speed displacement, then space is saved and the arrangement is suited for high speeds, but line breakouts occur due to inability to maintain desired course during high accelerations
Solution Approach 1:
The guide surface is provided only in the region where the strand passes over the trough floor, rather than the entire trough. This localized guide surface is sufficient to prevent breakout during high-speed displacement while maintaining line stability throughout the displacement path.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide surface is designed with an oblique cross-section that is asymmetric relative to the horizontal plane. This asymmetric geometry creates a directional guiding effect that counteracts the outward force on the strand during high-acceleration movement, preventing breakout while allowing smooth displacement.
2Reliability
If complex mechanisms with pivotable movement limits are used to prevent uncontrolled movements, then line breakout is prevented, but the mechanism becomes maintenance-intensive and structurally complicated
Solution Approach 1:
The complex pivotable movement limit mechanism is replaced by a simple geometric feature - the oblique guide surface on the trough floor. This extracts the essential guiding function from the complex mechanism, achieving line containment through the guide surface geometry alone without additional mechanical components.
Solution Approach 2:
The guide surface uses the weight and geometry of the strand itself to maintain proper positioning during displacement. The oblique surface naturally guides the strand back toward the center during high-acceleration movement without requiring external control mechanisms, making the system self-regulating and maintenance-free.
Data Source
AI summary
A dynamic line guiding system for high speeds and/or long displacement paths, with an energy chain arranged as lying on the side, which chain, in the configuration of a first strand, a second strand, as well as a deflection curve, is displaceable back and forth. The energy chain is guided in a guide trough with two laterally-opposite side walls and a trough floor therebetween, wherein each strand is respectively displaceable with a lateral surface on a respective bearing surface on the trough floor, and is held, relative to the outside, by means of one of the two side walls. It is provided that the trough floor comprises at least one bearing surface with a step or a ramp, which counteracts a deviation of the first strand out of its intended target location on the respective bearing surface.