ROTARY POSITION TRANSDUCER AND METHOD

摘要

A rotary position transducer (44) and method of mounting the same. The transducer (44) includes a housing (46) having a disc-shaped end plate (50), a guide (68) in a main aperture (66) in the end plate, a plurality of frangible coupling elements (70) rigidly supporting the guide on the end plate, a stator (72) rigidly supported on the transducer housing behind the end plate, and a rotor (74) rigidly attached to the guide and supported inside of the stator with an annular gap (76) therebetween. The transducer (44) is mounted on a structural member (18) around a shaft (26) rotatably supported on the structural member by first mounting the guide (68) on the shaft, then rigidly clamping the transducer housing (46) to the structural member, and then applying torque to the shaft to fracture the frangible coupling elements (70) and release the rotor (74) for rotation with the shaft relative to the transducer housing and the stator (72). A radial depth dimension "D" of the annular gap (76) between the rotor (74) and the stator (72) exceeds the maximum lateral departure of the shaft (26) from a rotation axis (32) of the structural member (18), i.e. the maximum lateral "runout" of the shaft, thereby to positively foreclose p hysical interference between the rotor and the stator after the coupling elements (70) are fractured.