A mobile transform structure having an openable/closeable trailer body which is reversibly transformable between a closed, transportable, tractor-trailer mode and an open, ground-stabilized, spray-booth mode for receiving, and armor spray-coating, a selected surface in a subject wheeled vehicle at the location of that vehicle. The transform structure includes, in addition to the trailer body, a deployable canopy structure useable, with the trailer body open, to form a canopied spray enclosure for receiving a subject vehicle, and a trailer-self-contained, armor spray-coating system operable, when a wheeled vehicle is received in the enclosure, to armor spray-coat a selected surface in that vehicle. The method of the invention includes (a) transporting the closed trailer body to the site of such a vehicle, (b) opening that body at that site to transform it to a spray enclosure adapted for the entering and exiting of such a vehicle, and (c) and within the enclosure, and utilizing an armor spray-coating system which is self-contained on the trailer body, armor spray-coating a received vehicle.

BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

This invention relates to the spray-coating of protective armoring shields, or coatings, onto selected exposed surfaces of client wheeled vehicles, such as a client military tanker vehicle, and a client military personnel-carrier vehicle. The invention features a highly mobile, compact, self-contained, ground-traveling system for field-implementing such spray-coating activities. This mobile system is referred to herein as a mobile transform structure having two distinctly different structural modes, one of which is referred to as a tractor-trailer structural mode, with respect to which the transform structure is reversibly transformable, is referred to herein as a spray-booth structural mode. For illustration purposes only, the invention is described and pictured herein in a military setting, wherein it has been found to offer special utility.

Recent progress in the science and art of applying ballistic, up-armoring shield coatings (called armor coatings) to surface areas of military wheeled vehicles has led to various spray-on approaches which apply composite blends of fast-curing armoring/jacketing materials. The present invention, recognizing both the technical importance of these approaches, and the expressed need to make them readily available to myriad, in-the-field military vehicles which are deployed in widely scattered locations, responds to this recognition with a ground-traveling, fully self-contained, vehicular-carried, armoring spray-application system which can be taken to the respective sites of different subject vehicles (client vehicles) having surfaces to be armor-coated.

References made herein to wheeled vehicles is intended to include reference to various kinds of self-propelled, ground-traveling vehicles, including appropriate kinds and styles of track-laying vehicles. The terms “wheeling-in” and “wheeling-put” refer to traveling motions created in such vehicles.

Proposed, according to a preferred embodiment and manner of practicing this invention, is a tractor-pulled, elongate trailer structure including an elongate trailer body formed with lateral side panel assemblies that are hinged for book-cover-like swinging toward and away from one another, generally about axes which parallel the long axis of the trailer body, in order to enable opening and closing of the trailer body during implementation of the invention. The trailer body, in what is referred to herein as a closed condition, is transported to the site of a subject (client) wheeled vehicle having a surface which is to be armor spray-coated. At the site of this subject vehicle, the tractor is uncoupled from the trailer structure and the included trailer body, and the lateral side panel assemblies in the trailer body are swung outwardly and away from one another to open up the trailer body. This opening up activity forms a deck with respect to which an invention-included, and previously stowed, canopy structure, including suitable support hoops and typically a fabric canopy covering material are assembled to define, along with the open trailer body, an open-ended, elongate spray-coating enclosure adapted to receive a “wheeled-in” subject (client) vehicle.

Preferably, by the time the canopy structure is erected with respect to the opened trailer body, the trailer body is in a condition lowered to, and stably supported in a fixed condition, on the underlying ground, with a ramp then deployed adjacent one end of the trailer body which enables wheeling-in and wheeling-out of a subject wheeled vehicle to be armor coated with respect to one or more of its selected, exposed surfaces. Preferably, further, the very same tractor which is used to transport the trailer body to the site of a subject wheeled vehicle, once uncoupled from the trailer structure at the site of such a vehicle, may then be used, if desired, for the actions of wheeling-in and wheeling-out of a subject vehicle relative to the spray-coating enclosure.

Disposed in the overall trailer structure, in a tag-along trailer unit which is coupled to the trailer body adjacent the opposite end of the trailer body from that end which is made accessible for the entrance and exit of a vehicle to be surface coated, is a self-contained spray-coating system. This system includes all necessary coating supplies, conduit structures, valving structures, portable hose-connected spray heads, etc., that make up the self-contained spray-coating system.

The system and methodology proposed by this invention have the distinct advantage of being transportable readily to a variety of locations where vehicles having surfaces which are desired to be armor-coated are located, with all relevant spray-coating apparatus, including an enclosure wherein coating can take place, completely self-contained within a towable trailer structure per se.

The various features and advantages of the invention, some of which have just been suggested, will now become more fully apparent as the descriptions of the system and the methodology of this invention which follow are read in relation to the accompanying drawings.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Turning now to the drawings, and referring first of all toFIGS. 1-3, inclusive, indicated generally at10is a mobile transform structure made in accordance with a preferred embodiment and manner of practicing the present invention for armor spray-coating a selected surface in a wheeled vehicle, such as a vehicle herein-above, stationed somewhere “out in the field”, so-to-speak. Transform structure10includes elongate trailer structure12having an elongate, main trailer body14, and a tandem, or tag-along, trailer section, or unit,16which resides (is coupled) at the rear end14aof trailer body14. The front end of trailer body14, shown generally at14b, is coupled through a conventional fifth wheel connection (not specifically shown) to the frame of a tractor18, which tractor can thus be readily coupled and uncoupled from the trailer body in the usual manners.

In the condition of structural components as such are illustrated inFIG. 1, transform structure10is shown in what is referred to herein as a tractor-trailer structural mode, with trailer body14illustrated in a closed condition, and with the entire trailer structure being supported for travel over the ground under tow by tractor18. This condition of the transform structure is referred herein as a ground-traveling, tractor-towable condition. The front end of trailer structure12is supported indirectly for transport over the ground by wheels20that are carried on the frame in tractor18. The rear end of trailer structure12is supported for such a transport by wheels22which are carried on underside of tandem trailer unit16.

In accordance with the features and practice of the present invention, transform structure10is reversibly transformable between theFIG. 1illustrated tractor-trailer structural mode and another structural mode which is referred to herein as a spray-booth structural mode. In this other mode, the trailer structure is decoupled from tractor18, with trailer body14effectively lowered directly to a condition of contact with, and supported by, the ground wherein it is in a stabilized, ground-anchored condition.

FIG. 2illustrates what can be thought of as a beginning stage of transformation from the tractor-trailer structural mode, wherein trailer body14is in a closed condition, to the just-mentioned spray-booth structural mode, wherein the trailer body becomes opened up.FIG. 2specifically illustrates initial opening up of trailer body14.

Thus, and further describing structural features of the invention, trailer body14includes a base24(see particularlyFIG. 3in the drawings), and a pair of spaced lateral panel assemblies26,28which open and close the trailer body in a kind of reversible clam-shell or book-hinge fashion around, and relative to, a pair of generally horizontal hinge axes26a,28a, respectively, which lie along the opposite, lateral, long sides of trailer body base24to form an appropriate, generally planar and horizontal, wheeled-vehicle receiving and supporting deck25.

InFIG. 3in the drawings specifically, trailer body14is shown in a fully opened, or open, stabilized, ground-anchored condition, with panel assemblies26,28including portions which furnish co-extensive lateral extensions of previously mentioned base24to create just-above-identified deck25. Thus, in this figure, the structure of the invention is illustrated in a condition with tractor18completely decoupled from trailer structure12, and specifically, decoupled from what is referred to herein as the front, towing end14bof trailer body14. Through any appropriate, conventional mechanism, the details of which form no part of the present invention, the opened trailer body, as pictured inFIG. 3, has been lowered to a condition of stabilized, ground-anchored contact with the underlying ground. Those skilled in the art will recognize that there are many conventionally understood ways in which such lowering and stabilizing, and of course later raising when appropriate, may be accomplished relative to the front and rear ends of trailer body14, and also relative to tandem trailer unit16. Another approach for ground stabilization of trailer body14could, of course, include the lowering of stabilizing legs, without the lowering specifically of the trailer body, so as to create a ground-anchored condition for the opened trailer body. These conventional approaches to trailer-body ground-stabilization form no part of the present invention, and are therefore not detailed herein.

Additionally included in the transform structure of this invention, in a condition hinged adjacent the front end of trailer-body base24for swinging about a generally horizontal axis30a, is a stowable/deployable ramp, or ramp structure,30which, inFIG. 2is shown in a condition still within the partially open trailer body, and inFIG. 3in a fully outwardly and sloped deployed condition adjacent trailer body end14b. As will be seen, ramp30is designed to enable the easy wheeling-in and wheeling-out of a wheeled vehicle having surface structure which is to be armor spray-coated in accordance with practice of the invention.

Turning attention now to the remaining drawing figures along with those which have already been discussed, further included in the transform structure of this invention is stowable-deployable canopy structure which is indicated generally, but only fragmentarily, at32inFIGS. 5 and 6. Canopy structure32defines what is referred to herein as an open-ended, canopied spray enclosure34. More specifically, canopy structure32, which includes a plurality of longitudinally spaced (relative to the length dimension of trailer body14) support hoops32a(seeFIGS. 4,5and6) which support a canopy-surface fabric32b(seeFIGS. 5 and 6), collectively with trailer body base24, and the two lateral platform extensions formed with this base by panel assemblies26,28, define spray enclosure34(seeFIGS. 4,5and6) which is adapted to receive different wheeled vehicles for armor spray-coating of surface areas in these vehicles. In order to expose, for fuller viewing herein, the interior of enclosure34inFIG. 4, canopy fabric32bis omitted from this figure. The hoop and fabric-expanse components of canopy structure32are, of course, suitably stowed within trailer structure12when that structure is in its tractor-trailer structural mode, as pictured inFIG. 1.

InFIGS. 4 and 5, the tractor-detached trailer body of a petroleum-based fuel tanker is shown at35, appropriately wheeled into and positioned within enclosure34to enable armor spray-coating of the outside, exposed surface areas of this trailer body. InFIG. 6, the long-axial-view outline of the fuel-containing portion of tanker35is shown, and is identified with this same reference numeral (35).

Completing a description of the transform structure of this invention as illustrated in the several drawing figures herein, further included in this structure, and specifically contained for the most part in tandem trailer unit16, is a self-contained armor spray-coating system shown fragmentarily and only schematically in dashed lines at36inFIGS. 1,3and5. This spray-coating system includes appropriate reservoirs of armor spray-coating materials, as will be described shortly, conduits, hoses, desired, and any other appropriate auxiliary equipment suitable for enabling walk-around, manual spray-coating of a surface area, or of surface areas, in an enclosure-received wheeled vehicle, such as fuel tanker trailer35pictured inFIGS. 4 and 5, and in tank cross-sectional outline inFIG. 6. Auxiliary supplies associated with operation of spray-coating system36may also be stored, and/or installed for use, in suitable containers, such as the two shown at38,40inFIGS. 4 and 5, which containers may be carried conveniently within the interior of trailer body14when that trailer body is in its closed condition, as pictured inFIG. 1.

While the particular transform structure illustrated and described herein has been designed for implementing manual, walk-around spraying of a wheeled vehicle disposed within enclosure34, it should be understood that a modified form of the invention could feature a spray-coating armoring system in which a self-contained spray-coating system includes components that become erected within enclosure34for automated spray-coating use. However, in order to maximize the wide-ranging versatility invention, and recognizing that a very large variety of wheeled vehicles may be brought into enclosure34for armor spray-coating, it is preferable that manual spray-coating be provided for primarily.

Focusing attention now especially onFIG. 7in the drawings, here there are shown ten, word-labeled blocks (a)-(j), inclusive, coupled by unidirectionally pointing interconnecting arrows. These blocks generally illustrate various steps carried out in the practice of the present invention. Thus, and referring to these blocks to describe that practice, transform structure10, in its tractor-trailer structural mode, is transported to the location of a wheeled vehicle having a surface which is to be armor-coated, and is suitably positioned close by this vehicle (block (a)). With this done, tractor18is uncoupled from the trailer structure12(block (b)), and trailer body14is appropriately lowered to the ground (block (c)), or otherwise treated, to stabilize it and to anchor it effectively in a ground-fixed condition.

Following stabilizing of trailer body14, panel assemblies26,28and ramp structure30are unfolded and swung into deployed conditions and positions (block (d)) so that they, and the base of trailer body14, have the dispositions clearly illustrated inFIG. 3in the drawings.

With this accomplished, the hoops and fabric expanse components of canopy structure32are appropriately set up with respect to the now unfolded and opened up trailer body (block (e)) so as to form elongate, canopied spray enclosure34as seen inFIGS. 4,5and6in the drawings.

With spray enclosure34thus readied, the various appropriate components of armor spray-coating system36are deployed from trailer body14and tandem trailer unit16, and preferably utilizing tractor18, the wheeled body of a vehicle which is to have certain surface areas armor spray-coated in accordance with practice of the invention is wheeled upwardly along ramp30into enclosure34to attain a position like that shown for tanker trailer35inFIGS. 4 and 5in the drawings. Obviously, if such a wheeled vehicle is self-propelled, it may simply be driven under its own power up ramp30and into enclosure34.

With a wheeled vehicle to be spray-coated properly positioned within enclosure34, the spray-coating system components are appropriately operated, typically manually, to apply armor spray-coating material to the relevant surface areas, with one or more operators moving easily around the enclosure-received vehicle in walk-around regions provided readily by the unfolded and exposed deck-portions of panel assemblies26,28. This spray-coating step of the invention is represented by block (h) inFIG. 7.

In the particular practice of the invention now being described with reference to wheeled vehicle (tanker trailer)35, and while other kinds of armor spray-coating materials may be utilized, the fuel-tank portion of vehicle35is coated with a special three-sub-layer coating, such as that illustrated generally, but only fragmentarily, at42inFIG. 6. Coating42is applied in a near fully circumsurrounding fashion on the outside of trailer tanker35relative to the tanker's fuel tank's long axis which is shown at35ainFIG. 6. The three sub-layers which make up coating42inFIG. 6are shown generally at42a,42b,42c. Dash-double-dot lines are provided inFIG. 6to illustrate the near circumsurrounding nature of the coating specifically applied to tanker trailer35. More will be said very shortly about the specific nature of coating42which is used herein as an illustration of an armor spray-coating material.

Following full and satisfactory spray-coating, the coated vehicle is wheeled out of the enclosure and down ramp30to be returned typically to the ground site where it was first located. This step of the invention is represented by block (i) inFIG. 7.

Finally, if there are more wheeled vehicles to be armor spray-coated at the same subject-vehicle site, the steps which are represented by blocks (g), (h) and (i) are repeated. This repeat operation is represented by block (j) inFIG. 7.

Discussing now briefly illustrative armor spray-coating materials which have been found to be very effective for armor-coating selected surfaces in vehicles, such as tanker35, coating sub-layers42a,42care preferably formed from a high-elastomeric material which is a chemically-curable, two-part, urethane-blend material formed of a specific urethane compound having not only a very high degree of elasticity, but also a propensity to imbibe somewhat, and to swell and coagulate on contact with, petroleum-based fuel in the event of a puncture leak occurring in a surface which is outside-protected by this urethane material. A very satisfactory elastomeric material for this purpose has been found to be the material sold under the trademark TUFF STUFF®FR made by Rhino Linings USA in San Diego, Calif. Intermediate sub-layer42bherein is preferably a blend of the very same two-part, urethane, elastomeric material used in sub-layers42a,42c, combined with an embedded distribution of liquid-imbiber beads having an affinity for petroleum-based fuel, such as the bead product made by Imbibitive Technologies America, Inc. in Midland, Mich., and sold under product designator IMB230300.

Suitable supplies for all of these blendable, spray-application, armor-coating materials are readily carried as part of the mentioned self-contained armor spray-coating system36.

Nothing about the present invention involves the specific details of the controls, pressures, flow-rates, etc. appropriate to create an armor coating such as that pictured at42inFIG. 6, and it is entirely satisfactory to follow all of the relevant application modalities and instructions given specifically by the makers of the materials just described for the make up of sub-layers42a,42b,42cin illustrative coating42. While different specific overall layer and sub-layer coating thicknesses may be chosen when one utilizes the materials just described for coating42, a very suitable set of dimensions includes that set wherein sub-layer42ahas a thickness of about ¼-inches, sub-layer42bhas a thickness of about ⅛-inches, and sub-layer42chas a thickness of about ¼-inches. These respective sub-layer thicknesses do not form any part of the present invention.

Accordingly, disclosed and offered by the present invention are a unique transform structure, and an associated methodology, for armor spray-coating different kinds of wheeled vehicles out in the field where they are located. This is done by transporting an entire spray-coating transform system to the respective sites of such wheeled vehicles where the system of the invention can be set up and appropriately deployed for very easy and quickly accomplished armor spray-coating.

While a preferred embodiment of the various components of the invention, and a preferred utilization methodology, have been specifically described and illustrated herein, it is appreciated that variations and modifications may be made without departing from the sprit of the invention.