Patent Application
20090167074
This invention relates to a safety device for a vehicle wheel, and more particularly a device for preventing the connecting elements of said wheel from rotating.
For appearance's sake, many vehicles, regardless of their use, are equipped with hub caps. These elements hide the hub and the attachment elements of the wheel rim as well as the wheel rim itself, whereby most of these wheel rims are fairly unsightly for reasons of cost.
While remaining easily removable, the hub caps can thus ensure protection of the attachment elements of the wheel rim of the wheel against inclement weather and various protrusions. The attachment elements are less susceptible to corrosion and do not seize in their housings; it is thus possible to remove them if necessary.
In contrast, it has been noted that the attachment elements of wheels of certain vehicles, in particular screws, become disengaged little by little from the hub to which they are connected, even if the tightening torque is as specified by the designer. This loosening results from vibrations produced by the irregularities in the pavement, for example, or by more consistent shocks due to more significant imperfections of the surface, of the “pothole” type, for example.
Thus, this disengagement of the attachment screws is not due to great mechanical stresses; only the repetition of shocks and the continuity of vibrations are to blame. A perverse effect of the hub cap, when one is present, is then noted: that of concealing the loosened attachment screws.
Without a regular visual monitoring of these screws, the user of the vehicle may be in danger as well as the other users.
Even in the absence of hub caps, some drivers of vehicles, not very attentive, no longer necessarily pay attention to such loosenings. Various holding devices exist for the purpose of preventing this disengagement of screws in the prior art. These are anti-rotational devices, in the shape of a ring, using as many housings as necessary to lock the screw heads. These devices are grafted on the wheel rim or on the attachment elements by mechanical means that require specific additional equipment that is added to the equipment that is necessary for removing the wheel.
Also, the purpose of this invention is to solve the problems of the prior art by proposing a device for locking nuts or screws of wheels, integrated in the hub cap of said wheel, easily removable so as not to require special or additional equipment. Said locking and therefore safety device prevents the rotation of the attachment elements of said wheel.
For this purpose, the object of the invention is a safety device for a vehicle wheel, whereby said wheel comprises a wheel rim, attached to the hub of said vehicle by attachment screws and equipped with a hub cap, characterized in that it comprises anti-rotational means borne by the hub cap and provided to work with the screws for attaching the wheel rim on the hub.
For the remainder of the description, “screw” is defined as either screws that work with threaded holes in the hub or nuts that are provided to be screwed onto the bolts that are integral with said hub.
Other characteristics and advantages will emerge from the following description of the invention, a description that is provided only by way of example, taking into account the accompanying drawings, in which:
The safety device 10 for a vehicle wheel 12 according to the invention is illustrated by
Wheel 12 comprises a tire 14 that is mounted on a wheel rim 16 attached to the hub 18 by attachment screws 20.
A hub cap 22 that integrates the safety device 10 is connected to the wheel rim 16 by known means of the prior art, for example using clamp 24 that facilitates the mounting and removal of said hub cap 22 without a special tool.
The safety device 10 for vehicle wheel 12 according to this invention incorporates anti-rotational means 26 that are provided to prevent a rotation, in particular loosening of the attachment screws 20, able to bring about a disengagement of the wheel 12 from the vehicle.
The anti-rotational means 26, presented in detail in
Each cap 28 is connected in rotation with each of the attachment screws 20 of the wheel rim 16 that is integral with the hub 18 to which it is secured.
The means for connecting in rotation each of the caps 28 of the safety device 10 with each screw comprises interlocking means 32, generally a conjugated profile of the screw head in the case of a screw with a hexagonal head, see
Each cap 28 of the safety device 10 is mounted to rotate freely relative to the hub cap that carries it so as to make its orientation possible.
For this purpose, the caps 28 have an essentially cylindrical body and use attachment means 34 such as those that are illustrated on the cap 28 shown in section in
Other attachment means 34, known to one skilled in the art, can be used as long as they allow the cap 28 to rotate while keeping it on the hub cap 22 during the use of the vehicle, in particular a groove with a snap ring.
As illustrated in
In addition, the locking means 30 in rotation comprise at least one index 46 that can rest against support means 48.
In the general diagrammatic embodiment, this index 46 is oriented in an essentially perpendicular manner to the axis of rotation X of the cap, which is combined with the axis of rotation of the attachment screw 20.
The operation of the safety device according to this invention is now described in its general mode with female adaptation for the hexagonal screw head or with male adaptation for the screw head with six hollow sections.
The individual responsible for maintenance, who will be called the driver for the sake of convenience, installs a hub cap 22 on each of the wheels. The hub cap is connected to the wheel rim 16, and the caps 28 of the safety device 10 of the hub cap 22 are installed and oriented by making them work with the heads 20 of the attachment screws.
The means 30 for locking in rotation will prevent the rotation of the caps 28. Actually, in the event of loosening starting, the screw 20 rotates on a very limited angular sector because the cap 28 that is integral with it in rotation rotates simultaneously. The rotation of the cap also moves the index 46 in rotation that comes into contact with the support means 48, in this case the hub of the projecting wheel.
Consequently, the screw 20 can no longer become loosened unexpectedly under the action of vibrations and other shocks.
Thus, during the mounting of the hub cap 22 that incorporates a safety device 10 with the caps 28-2 that are designed according to this embodiment, the index 46-2 can be brought to a stop close to the support means 48 upon activation, thus keeping loosening from even starting.
As a variant, it is possible to provide support means 48 of the indices 46 of caps 28, essential to their locking in rotation, which are borne by the hub cap 22 itself or by elements outside of said hub cap 22.
Thus, according to a third variant embodiment of the device, shown in
The attachment screws 20 being essentially distributed along a circle C whose center corresponds to the axis Y of rotation of the wheel 12, this wall P projects toward the outside and the height is essentially equal to that of the caps 28-3. In
In
According to a fourth variant of the support means 48-4, illustrated in
Ideally, several positions 54 close to a cap 28-4 for the axis 52 are provided.
According to a fifth variant illustrated in
According to a sixth variant illustrated in
Advantageously, the hub cap 22 can comprise one more part, called a mask, whereby the purpose of this part is to improve the appearance of a hub cap 22 by concealing the safety device 10 for the vehicle wheel 12. This mask is attached to the hub cap 22 by means that are known to one skilled in the art.
Of course, the invention obviously is not limited to the embodiment shown and described above, but on the contrary covers all the variants, in particular regarding the materials that are used, the sizes and shapes of the safety device 10, its caps 28 and the associated hub cap 22.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0650448 | Feb 2006 | FR | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/FR2007/050749 | 2/5/2007 | WO | 00 | 9/19/2008 |
