摘要 |
An acceleration-sensitive safety brake having two semi-cylindrical flyweights in a single plane, connected near the geometric center of their semi-circular cross-section to eccentric pivot pins protruding from a rotating hub for limiting the acceleration of an apparatus. The flyweights are held in a centered position during normal operation by the force of a helical spring acting on split halves of semicylindrical cavities in each of the adjacent faces of the flyweights. The flyweights are located in cylindrical hole of a fixed housing which is concentric with the rotating hub. Rapid angular acceleration of the hub applies both a rotational and translational motion to the flyweights. Whenever the pivot pins apply a force to the flyweights which is greater than the force exerted by the centering spring, the flyweights move in opposite directions, relative to each other, and push against the fixed housing creating a braking action. The material chosen for flyweights is hard rubber, and a preselected ratio of the flyweight radius to pivot pin eccentricity radius make the mechanism self-locking as long as input torque remains applied to the hub.
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