Vehicle Track Drive Lug Reinforcement for Wear Resistance
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Solution Overview
Problem
The internal drive lugs in positive drive, endless rubber tracks experience stress, wear, and potential failure due to contact with drive bars and undercarriage wheels, leading to cracks and premature wear, necessitating a solution for enhanced durability and resistance.
Innovation Solution
The use of strategically placed, cut pieces of reinforcement fabric within each drive lug, which can be built up with multiple layers to increase stiffness, torque capacity, and wear resistance, with inner fabric reinforcement layers extending into the lugs but not through the track carcass, and optional outer reinforcement layers for additional support.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Strength
If traditional rubber drive lugs are used without reinforcement, then the track structure remains simple and flexible, but the lugs experience severe wear, cracks, and premature failure due to contact stresses from drive bars and undercarriage wheels
Solution Approach 1:
The drive lug is constructed as a composite structure combining rubber material with embedded fabric reinforcement layers. The fabric layers are strategically positioned within the lug to provide tensile strength and resistance against wear and cracking, while the rubber provides flexibility and shock absorption. This composite approach resolves the contradiction by significantly enhancing lug strength without requiring a completely different structural design.
Solution Approach 2:
The fabric reinforcement is not uniformly distributed throughout the entire track but is specifically concentrated within the drive lugs where stress and wear are most severe. The reinforcement layers are embedded only in the regions subject to contact with drive bars and undercarriage wheels, providing localized strength enhancement while maintaining simplicity in non-critical areas of the track.
2Reliability
If multiple layers of fabric reinforcement are embedded in drive lugs, then wear resistance and torque capacity are improved, but manufacturing complexity and production time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The fabric reinforcement layers are pre-positioned and embedded within the rubber lug structure during the manufacturing process, before the track is put into service. This preliminary action ensures that the reinforcement is perfectly positioned to withstand anticipated wear and stress patterns, maximizing reliability. The multi-layer construction is built in during manufacturing, allowing for controlled quality and consistent performance.
Solution Approach 2:
Multiple fabric reinforcement layers are nested within each other inside the rubber lug structure, with each layer positioned at different depths and orientations. This nested arrangement provides progressive reinforcement, where inner layers protect outer layers from wear, and the cumulative effect of multiple layers significantly enhances torque capacity and durability without requiring an excessively complex manufacturing process.
Data Source
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AI summary
The tracks of the present invention utilize cut pieces of reinforcement which are associated with each individual drive lug. By using individual pieces the lugs can be easily built up with multiple layers of rubber and reinforcement. The cut pieces can be strategically shaped and placed to optimize their effect to realize improved performance and durability of the track. Incorporation of such inner fabric reinforcement layers adds stiffness to the lugs and thereby increases the torque capacity of the track. Additional layers also provide increased damage resistance after the outer layers of fabric are worn away, and added layers improve wear resistance on the sides of the lugs due to undercarriage misalignment and track-to-wheel contact when the vehicle turns during normal operations. All embedded inner fabric reinforcement layers are made of individually cut pieces of fabric which do not extend continuously around the entire circumference of the track. The embedded inner fabric reinforcements may be as wide as or narrower then the width of the lug. In the circumferential direction the fabric layers typically both begin and end within the lug without extending into the carcass of the track (under the base of the lugs). The present invention more specifically discloses an endless vehicle track comprising a body formed of an elastomeric material having an outer surface displaying a series of ground engaging profiles longitudinally spaced along said surface and an inner surface displaying a series of longitudinally spaced drive lugs adapted to be engaged by drive sprockets on said vehicle for retaining said track on said vehicle and for driving said vehicle, said drive lugs having a given width and height, said drive lugs having embedded therein at least a first inner fabric reinforcement layer extending into the lugs to a distance inward from the outer surface, wherein the inner fabric reinforcement layer begin at a first point within the lugs and end at a second point within the lugs.