CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application claims priority to China Patent Application No. 201710591325.5, filed on Jul. 19, 2017, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference to their entirety.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention involves a flexible damping device, particularly for a chassis of a traveling device, which can mitigate the external force impacting on the traveling mechanical wheels and their internal components.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

For a general vehicle, in order to implement steering, a steering gear is required at the vicinity of the wheel to enable the vehicle to turn smoothly. However, the general steering gears are mostly rigid connections. If the tires hit a pothole in the ground while traveling, the tires will instantaneously produce a side angle with respect to the centre-line of the wheel. The side angle not only hinders the travel of the vehicle, but the instantaneous force generated by the tires on hitting the pothole on the ground will also be transmitted to the steering gear. Since most vehicles do not have protecting devices installed on the steering gear to withstand these instantaneous forces and these instantaneous forces can cause damages to the steering gear and the steering gear can easily wear out over time.

The following details explain how these instantaneous forces can cause damages to the steering gear. In conventional vehicles, the wheels are connected to a gear box and the gear box is then connected to the steering gear. A plurality of gears is attached to the gear box and the gears are engaged with each other. Or dual gears are arranged in the direction of the rotation of the gear-shaft. If the plurality of shafts is coaxial, then once the gear box receives these instantaneous forces from the wheels, the plurality of stacked gears will no longer rotate “coaxially”. In order to enable the plurality of stacked gears to rotate coaxially under the influences of these instantaneous forces, a coaxial device is used among the plurality of stacked gears in the gear box so that a plurality of stacked gears can be rotated coaxially under the impact of these instantaneous external forces.

Typically, such a coaxial device is fixed between two transmission shafts of two machines (e.g., two gears) that need to be coaxial. In these two machines, the shaft of the first machine is connected to the other shaft of the other machine through a coaxial device to calibrate these two shafts. This type of coaxial device has the following designs: one of the designs is to use a coaxial device consisting of flexible part, an external joint, a pin, a nut, an inner joint, a ring, a ring nut and an anti-friction bushing. The flexible part is used as flexible rotating component for the coaxial device and the flexible part is fixed around each of the parallel shafts of the specific inner and outer coupling portions to form an effective and reliable flexible connection. By absorbing unequal torque and directions from two shafts, these two shafts can be coaxial. However, such a coaxial device has a complicated structure and includes a plurality of shaft joints, pin shafts, and nut fittings, which makes the production difficult; also many accessories may cause the weight of the coaxial device itself very heavy, which makes the installation more difficult. Consequently the transmission effect of the shaft becomes inefficient and the design extremely inconvenient to use.

In addition, there is also a design that uses a coaxial device composing a first semi-coaxial, a second semi-coaxial, a positioning sleeve and an elastomer. The symmetrical design of a first semi-coaxial and a second semi-coaxial is applied and the elastomer is mounted between these two semi-coaxial devices during use. These two semi-coaxial devices are connected by screws and the positioning sleeve is installed to protect and form the entire coaxial device. Although this design is easy to disassemble the two semi-coaxial devices for easy replacement of the elastomer, the coaxial device has too many components, screw holes and screws, and does not constitute an integrated coaxial device. The cost of manufacturing this coaxial device is extremely high and the manufacturing process of this coaxial device is extremely high, and its production is very inconvenient. In addition, when the elastomer is placed in the sealed space formed by the first semi-coaxial device and the second semi-coaxial device, the elastomer deteriorates easily so that it needs to be replaced very often and is too wasteful.

In addition, vehicles typically travel on relatively flat roads so they receive fewer external impacts and have less impact loads. However, for modern high-precision mechanical equipment, such as wheeled robots or special vehicles, due to the complexity of their travelling environment, their internal steering gears will receive more external impacts than the steering gears of the vehicles and cause damages easily.

OBJECT OF THE INVENTION

Given the disadvantages of the previous invention, the present one is a flexible damping device which provides a flexible shock-absorbing parts for connecting with two different mechanical shafts and absorbing torque so that the two machines can be coaxial during the rotating/transmission process. The flexible shock-absorbing parts is placed between the two machines and is attached to them. When the flexible shock-absorbing parts is installed in the vehicle, it allows the vehicle to absorb any instantaneous external force received by the wheels while travelling so that the impact of the external forces on the structure of the motor and the second gear inside the gear box can be reduced, thereby protecting these flexible shock-absorbing parts.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In summary, in order to improve the defects mentioned in the prior technology, the present invention provides a flexible damping device comprising of a plurality of flexible shock-absorbing parts, a plurality of gears and a transmission shaft.

The structure of this flexible shock-absorbing parts is very simple and easy to make, replace and maintain; an integrated design can also reduce the weight for the other parts in the flexible damping pieces. Also, it does not require a lot of screws and nuts so the cost of manufacturing can be greatly reduced, and is very convenient to use.

This present invention provides a plurality of flexible shock-absorbing parts for connecting with two shafts in two machines and for absorbing their torque and the two machines is coaxial-running. The flexible shock-absorbing parts are placed between the two machines and also attached to them, and they are arranged radially, on the first plane formed by the X-axis and the Y-axis in the Cartesian coordinate system.

The material of the flexible shock-absorbing parts can be metal or polymer, including steel, synthetic rubber and polyurethane. Preferably, the material selected for these flexible shock-absorbing parts is spring steel plates.

Preferably, the number of the flexible shock-absorbing parts is more than 1 and the flexible shock-absorbing parts are distributed peripherally over the shaft. When the number of the flexible shock-absorbing parts is an even number, each two pairs should be symmetrically distributed. When the number of the flexible shock-absorbing parts is an odd number, the angles between the two flexible shock-absorbing parts should be equally distributed.

In the present invention, the coupling and the flexible shock-absorbing parts are applied. When the flexible shock-absorbing parts are impacted and shocked by the external force, these flexible shock-absorbing parts will be deformed to absorb the impacts caused by the external forces so the impacts on the structure of the motor and the gears from the external forces can be reduced and the protection from these flexible shock absorbing parts is realized. When the external forces disappear, the deformation of the flexible shock absorbing parts is restored so the wheel can return to its initial state to ensure the normal operation of the wheel.

The present invention also provides a flexible damping device, which is composed of a plurality of flexible shock-absorbing parts as described above. It is used for a chassis of a vehicle. The flexible damping device is connected to a motor and a wheel base of the chassis. The features of the flexible damping pieces are as follows: a coupling, a first gear, an upper shaft, a second gear, a plurality of flexible shock-absorbing parts and a lower shaft. Wherein one end of the coupling is connected to the motor and the other end of the coupling is attached to the second gear; the second gear is engaged with the first gear, the first gear drives the upper shaft to rotate along with an upper axis; the flexible shock-absorbing parts arranged between the upper shaft and the lower shaft; both the lower shaft and the upper shaft rotate along with the second axis, with the lower shaft connected to the wheel base itself attached to a set of wheels. The wheels of the vehicle moves toward a first direction when the vehicle travelling; when the external force from a second direction is above zero, the flexible shock-absorbing parts will be in a receiving-force state, so they can absorb the external force and ensure that the upper axis and the lower axis are concurrent in the first plane, wherein the first direction is composed of the Y-axis in the Cartesian coordinate system, and the second direction is composed of the X-axis in the Cartesian coordinate system.

Preferably, the flexible shock-absorbing parts are in an initial state when the wheel is subjected to another external force from the second direction.

Preferably, in the initial state, the projected pattern of the flexible shock-absorbing parts on the first plane is the first pattern.

Preferably, in the receiving-force state, the projection pattern of the flexible shock-absorbing parts on the first plane is the second pattern.

Preferably, the first pattern is composed of a plurality of rectangles and the second pattern is composed of a plurality of polygons.

Preferably, wherein the flexible shock-absorbing parts is arranged in a gear box of the travelling device.

The flexible damping device provided by this invention can absorb the large instantaneous external force received by the wheel and reduce the impact of the external force on the structure of the motor and the second gear inside the gear box during the travel of the device in order to protect these flexible shock-absorbing parts. When the external force disappears, the deformation of the flexible shock-absorbing are restored so that the wheel can return to its initial state to ensure the normal operation of the travelling vehicle.

