How was the crawler invented What is the function of the crawler?

Everyone knows that the tank was invented by the British Swinton, but does anyone know who invented the track?

In fact, before the First World War, armored combat vehicles equipped with machine guns had appeared, although they were all wheeled. The reason why the tank was revolutionary at that time was not the armor protection, but the key was that it had the ability to pass off-road brought by tracks, that is, the ability to move forward without relying on the road. It can be said that there is no tank without tracks.

From this point of view, the significance of the invention of the track is greater than the tank itself.

There are two types of tractors: wheeled and tracked. The earliest tractor used iron wheels, not only bulky, easy to get trapped, and often crush the roots of plants, as early as the birth of the steam car shortly after the birth of the 30s of the 19th century, some people conceived to give the car wheels set wood and rubber made of "tracks", so that the heavy steam car can walk on the soft ground, but the early track performance and use effect is not good, until 1901 in the United States Lombard in the development of forestry traction vehicles, only invented the first practical effect of the track. Three years later, Holt, a California engineer, applied Lombard's invention to design and build the "77" steam tractor.

This is the world's first tracked tractor. On November 24, 1904, the first tests of this tractor were carried out, and later it was put into mass production. In 1906, Holt's tractor-making company produced the world's first tracked tractor powered by a gasoline internal combustion engine, which began mass production the following year, and was the most successful tractor of its time, and became a reference for the development of the world's first tank in Britain a few years later.

Adolphe Kégresse, a French engineer, developed a snowmobile in 1910 at the behest of Tsar Nicholas II on the basis of Packard, Mercedes-Benz and Delaunay-Belleville.

The invention of the track:

In 1770, Edgeworth invented a "railroad or artificial road that could run any horse-drawn carriage and move with it", and was patented in England. His method was to connect a number of wooden slats into a circular chain, moving them continuously in a certain way, so that one or several slats were always in contact with the ground. His aim was to distribute the weight of the carriage over a wider ground when using narrow wheels, so that the carriage could travel on rough or soft ground.

Edgeworth's designs, however, were all on paper.

American inventor Battle was granted a patent for a track in 1888. In 1904, Holt also obtained a patent for the invention of a very practical track, and in 1906 it was put into mass production, replacing the rear wheels of the original steam tractor with a track, and the Holden tracked tractor appeared. This is the kind of tractor that was first converted into a tank.

The main function of the track is to increase the contact area, reduce the pressure on the ground, and can work smoothly on the soft ground. The track is driven by the driving wheel, the flexible chain link that surrounds the driving wheel, the load wheel, the inducing wheel and the carrier pulley, and the track is composed of track shoes and track pins, etc., and the track pin connects each track shoe to form a track chain link. There are holes at both ends of the track shoe, which are meshed with the driving wheels, and there are inducing teeth in the middle to regulate the track, and prevent the track from falling off when the tank turns or rolls over, and there are reinforced anti-skid ribs (referred to as patterns) on the side in contact with the ground to improve the firmness of the track shoe and the adhesion between the track and the ground.

According to the structural type, tank tracks can be divided into two categories: metal pin hinge type and metal rubber hinge type. Among them, metal rubber hinges can be divided into two types: single-pin type and double-pin type. The metal pin crawler has a simple structure, direct dry friction between the pin and the pin hole, fast wear and short life, and it is often found that the track pin is ground into a "sugar gourd" shape during tank maintenance, and the track pin is also one of the wearing parts.

The metal rubber hinged track is to vulcanize a plurality of rubber collars on the metal pin, and press the fit in the track shoe pin hole, so that there is no direct friction between the track pin and the track shoe pin hole, and only the rubber collar produces elastic torsion when torsion, the noise is small, the life is long, of course, the structure is more complex, and the cost is higher.

The track is a flexible chain link driven by the driving wheels and surrounded by the driving wheels, load wheels, inducing wheels and carrier pulleys. The track consists of track shoes and track pins, etc. Track pins connect the individual track shoes to form a track chainlink.

There are holes at both ends of the track shoe, which are meshed with the driving wheels, and there are inducing teeth in the middle to regulate the track, and prevent the track from falling off when the tank turns or rolls over, and there are reinforced anti-skid ribs (referred to as patterns) on the side in contact with the ground to improve the firmness of the track shoe and the adhesion between the track and the ground.

The track is a flexible chain link driven by the main combustion shuttle wheels and surrounded by driving wheels, load wheels, induction wheels and carrier pulleys. The track consists of track shoes and track pins, etc. Track pins connect the individual track shoes to form a track chainlink.

There are holes at both ends of the track shoes, which are in line with the meshing nucleus section of the driving wheel, and there are induced base guide teeth in the middle to regulate the track, and prevent the track from falling off when the tank turns or rolls away, and there are strengthened anti-skid ribs (referred to as the pattern) on the side in contact with the ground, so as to improve the firmness of the track shoes and the adhesion of the track and the ground.