Rail road car and truck therefor

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9789886-B2
Application number	US-201113225449-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 4, 2011
Priority date	Aug 1, 2001
Publication date	Oct 17, 2017
Grant date	Oct 17, 2017

Abstract

A railroad car truck for a railroad freight car, such as an autorack car, has a bolster mounted cross-wise between two sideframes. The bolster ends are mounted on respective spring groups carried by the sideframes. The bolster can translate laterally relative to the sideframes. The side frames are mounted to swing laterally relative to the wheel sets, and hence relative to the rails. Resistance to lateral deflection is provided by the resistance of the sideframes to the pendulum swinging motion, and by shear in the spring groups. The truck has a doubled damper arrangement of dampers in a four-cornered layout at each end of the bolster, giving a flexing resistance to yaw between the sideframes and the bolster ends. The doubled damper arrangement works against large wear plates mounted on the sideframe columns. The large wear plates are mounted normal to the dampers and square to the sideframes.

First claim

I claim:

1. A railroad freight car truck having a load rating, said truck comprising:
a bolster, sideframes, spring groups and wheelsets;
said bolster being mounted cross-wise to said sideframes;
said bolster having a first end and a second end;
said first and second ends of said bolster being supported on respective ones of said spring groups carried by said sideframes, said spring groups having vertical spring rates;
said sideframes being swingingly mounted on said wheelsets;
said bolster being moveable through a lateral displacement relative to said sideframes, said lateral displacement having an overall magnitude and including a first component associated with a first lateral stiffness, k pendulum , opposing cross-wise swinging deflection of said sideframes and a second component associated with a second lateral stiffness, k spring shear , opposing sideways shear of said spring groups;
said first lateral stiffness being softer than said second lateral stiffness;
said bolster being movable in non-trivial yaw relative to said sideframes;
dampers mounted to work between said respective ends of said bolster and said sideframes, said dampers having damper wedges, said dampers being mounted yieldingly to oppose yawing of said bolster relative to said sideframes;
four of said damper wedges being mounted at said first end of said bolster, and four of said damper wedges being mounted at said second end of said bolster;
said damper wedges each having a first face for working against an associated wear surface in a friction relationship, and a second face for seating in a damper wedge pocket, said first and second faces being angled with respect to one another at a primary damper wedge angle, said primary damper wedge angle being at least 35 degrees; and
said damper wedges also have secondary damper wedge angles oriented cross-wise to said primary damper wedge angles.

2. The railroad freight car truck of claim 1 wherein said damper wedges also have tertiary wedge angles.

3. The railroad freight car truck of claim 1 wherein said first face of each of said damper wedges is a non-metallic face.

4. The railroad freight car truck of claim 1 wherein said truck is free of (a) a transom; (b) a frame brace; and (c) unsprung lateral bracing rods mounted cross-wise between said sideframes.

5. The railroad freight car truck of claim 1 wherein said damper wedges of said dampers are driven by springs.

6. The railroad freight car truck of claim 1 wherein, when said bolster is angularly deflected relative to a respective one of said sideframes in a yaw-deflected condition, the damper wedges associated with that respective sideframe exert a restorative moment couple linearly proportional to yaw deflection of said bolster.

7. A railroad freight car truck having a load rating, said truck comprising:
a bolster, sideframes, spring groups and wheelsets;
said bolster being mounted cross-wise to said sideframes;
said bolster having respective ends supported on respective ones of said spring groups, said spring groups being carried by said sideframes, said spring groups having vertical spring rates;
said sideframes being swingingly mounted on said wheelsets;
said bolster being moveable through a lateral displacement relative to said sideframes, said lateral displacement having an overall magnitude and including a first component associated with a first lateral stiffness, k pendulum , opposing cross-wise swinging deflection of said sideframes and a second component associated with a second lateral stiffness, k spring shear , opposing sideways shear of said spring groups;
said first lateral stiffness being softer than said second lateral stiffness;
said bolster being movable in non-trivial yaw relative to said sideframes; and
damper wedges mounted at each end of said bolster, said damper wedges having primary damper wedge angles of at least 35 degrees and having secondary damper wedge angles oriented cross-wise to said primary damper wedge angles.

8. The railroad freight car truck of claim 7 wherein:
said bolster has a first end and a second end;
four of said damper wedges are mounted at said first end of said bolster, and four of said damper wedges are mounted at said second end of said bolster; and
said truck is free of (a) a transom; (b) a frame brace; and (c) unsprung lateral bracing rods mounted between said sideframes.

9. The railroad car truck of claim 7 wherein each said damper wedge is driven by a spring of one of said spring groups, and each said damper wedge is mounted to work between said bolster and one of said sideframes.

10. The railroad freight car truck of claim 7 wherein said truck has four-cornered groups of said damper wedges mounted at each end of said bolster.

11. The railroad freight car truck of claim 7 wherein, when said bolster is angularly deflected relative to a respective one of said sideframes in a yaw-deflected condition, the damper wedges associated with that respective sideframe exert a restorative moment couple linearly proportional to yaw deflection of said bolster.

12. The railroad freight car truck of claim 7 wherein said damper wedges also have tertiary wedge angles.

13. The railroad freight car truck of claim 7 wherein said damper wedges each has a first face for working against an associated wear surface in a friction relationship, and said first face of each of said damper wedges is a non-metallic face.

14. The railroad freight car truck of claim 7 wherein said truck is free of (a) a transom; (b) a frame brace; and (c) unsprung lateral bracing rods mounted cross-wise between said sideframes.

15. The railroad freight car truck of claim 7 wherein said damper wedges are driven by springs of said spring groups.

16. A railroad freight car truck having:
a bolster extending cross-wise between a pair of sideframes, said sideframes being swingingly mounted on wheelsets, said sideframes having a pendulum stiffness resistant to lateral swinging deflection thereof;
said bolster having ends mounted on respective main spring groups carried by said sideframes, said main spring groups each having a lateral shear stiffness;
said sideframes being yawingly mounted relative to said bolster;
a four-cornered group of dampers mounted at each end of said bolster, said groups of dampers being biased resiliently to restore said sideframes from a yaw-deflected condition to a squared condition relative to said bolster;
said pendulum stiffnesses and said lateral shear stiffnesses combining to resist lateral deflection of said bolster relative to said wheelsets;
said main spring group lateral shear stiffnesses being stiffer than said pendulum stiffnesses; and
said dampers including damper wedges, said damper wedges having both a primary damper wedge angle and a cross-wise oriented secondary damper wedge angle.

17. The railroad freight car truck of claim 16 wherein said four-cornered damper groups include damper wedges having primary damper wedge angles of at least 35 degrees.

18. The railroad freight car truck of claim 16 wherein said dampers are resiliently sprung on members of said main spring groups.

19. The railroad freight car truck of claim 16 wherein, when said bolster is angularly deflected relative to a respective one of said sideframes in said yaw-deflected condition, the damper group associated with that respective sideframe exerts a restorative moment couple linearly proportional to yaw deflection of said bolster.

20. The railroad freight car truck of claim 16 wherein said dam

Assignees

• Forbes James W
• Nat Steel Car Ltd

Inventors

• Forbes James W

Classifications

• B61F5/06 Primary

  incorporating metal springs · CPC title

• B61D3/18

  for vehicles {(vehicles adapted to carry other vehicles, in general, B60P3/06)} · CPC title

• B61F5/122

  with friction surfaces · CPC title

• B61F3/125

  with more than one axle or wheel set · CPC title