CHAINSAW GUIDE BAR WHICH STIFFENS WHEN BENT

Abstract: Chain saw guide bar comprising three plates joined by welding, having a nose (12), a clamping area (11) and a guiding groove (18) for the chain, where the bending stiffness in a zone immediately in front of the clamping area is increased by omitting welds in the zone to make sure that the compressed plate buckles outward when overloaded. The zone extends in the longitudinal direction of the bar for a distance greater than the groove depth and less than the bar width.

Description: CHATNSAW GUIDE BAR WHICH STIFFENS WHEN BENT Background Chainsaws mounted on tree harvester vehicles usually comprise a saw unit mounted on an articulated arm which can be extended to the tree to be felled. The same saw unit can then also be used for bucking the tree to desired lengths. The saw unit comprises the chainsaw with saw chain, guide bar and motor, as well as gripping arms and feeder wheels to hold and position the tree trunk. The guide bar is attached to the motor by clamping of its clamping end between two clamping blocks. The saw chain runs around the guide bar guided by a groove, and the guide bar edges on each side of the groove usually have at least partially hardened surfaces for smooth sliding of the chain. Tree harvester guide bars are subjected to very great stresses in service, especially if the support of the vehicle against the ground fails, or the gripper arms of the saw unit slip on the tree trunk, with the result that the weight of the tree is transferred to the guide bar. The largest stresses occur immediately in front of the clamping blocks. It is unavoidable that the guide bar will eventually be permanently bent in this region when overloaded, and it has always been a requirement that bent guide bars should be straightenable for further use. Three obstacles to this have been cracking of hardened sliding surfaces, fracture in the welds joining the plates in laminated guide bars and abrupt local buckling of a guide bar edge into the groove, making it too narrow for the saw chain. Many guide bar designs have been suggested to avoid these obstacles. Cracks in the sliding surfaces are minimized if the hardening is done only in the regions most subject to wear, as in patent US 2,962,812, or specifically omitted in the critical region in front of the clamping region as in patent US 2,897.856. The neighbourhood of the oil supply holes within the clamping region should also be unhardened. Fracture of welds can be minimized if spot welds are made especially close and numerous within the critical region and afterwards annealed as in patent US 5,052,109, or if the welding is done before total hardening and edge hardening as in patent SE 469.324. Local buckling is a major disadvantage with guide bars according to US 5,052,109 and will also occur with bars according to SE 469.324, although at a much higher load. The present invention is a guide bar which eliminates the problems with spot weld fracture and local inward buckling, and is thus safely and easily straightened. The load at which deformation occurs is higher than for other guide bars. Description A guide bar according to the invention is shown in figure 1. Figure 2 shows the deformation of the critical region of a guide bar according to the invention when overloaded, as seen in the plane of the guide bar, figure 3 the same for a traditional guide bar. The guide bar has a clamping end region (11) and a nose (12), usually provided with a nose sprocket. Immediately in front of the clamping region is the critical region most subjected to bending stress as a zone (13) across the bar, and between this zone and the nose is the main cutting region (14) of the bar body. The guide bar has a laminated bar body made from two side plates (15,16) and one center plate (17) joined by welding, in the figures exemplified by spot welding. If the guide bar is subjected to a large loading force at the nose, a large bending moment is created in the critical zone (13) as referred to a section through the whole bar. Referring to the individual plates, the side plate (15) on the same side as the load is subjected to a large tensile stress, the opposite side plate (16) is subjected to a large compressive stress and the center plate (17) to low average stress. When a plate is subjected to compressive stress, it will ultimately buckle in a direction where it is not supported when a high enough stress level is reached. This level is strongly dependent on the free length of the plate available for buckling, a shorter length requiring higher stress than a greater length. The stress level depends also on any initial curvature of the plate, with a lower stress level if buckling can occur in the same direction as the initial curvature, and a higher stress level if buckling can only occur in the opposite direction. In a guide bar of traditional type with normal distances between spot welds, or according to US 5,052,109 with very close spot welds in the critical zone (13), the welds keep the plates supported against each other except for very short lengths which avoids buckling until the stresses reach the elastic limit and the bar is deformed like a solid bar. One exception is the edge part of the side plate (16) bordering to the chain groove (18). This is not supported but stiffened by its connection to the non-buckling welded parts and may then be locally buckled with a free length roughly equal to the distance from the sliding surface (20) to the nearest weld. This is a short length, and local buckling will occur at such a high stress level that an abrupt fold (1 ) is caused inwards into the groove. The bar the continues to bend with a constant or slightly lower bending moment. The patent US 5,052,109 intended to lower the elastic limit so much that the bar is permanently bent before there is any risk of local buckling of the edge, but the maximum load at the nose is then drastically lowered, which is a major disadvantage, and some buckling will still occur. A bar where local buckling of the edge has occurred is shown in figure 3. Since the buckling is restricted to the edge part bordering to the groove, it cannot be corrected by hammering or straightening of the welded regions, and the groove is permanently narrowed. On a guide bar according to the invention the welds are omitted within the critical zone (13), making it possible for the whole compressed side plate (16) including the edges to buckle smoothly outwards with a large enough free length (21) corresponding to the longitudinal extent of the zone, that this occurs before there is any local buckling of the edge. When the compressed side plate (16) buckles outwards, the effective thickness of the bar increases, and the bending moment increases more rapidly than if no buckling had occurred. Since the edges deform like the rest of the plate, straightening of such a bar is simply done by pressing or hammering of the overlapping parts of the plates, and since the buckling went outwards there is no narrowing of the chain groove. Since the free buckling length (21) is large, there is less risk of cracking of the sliding surfaces (20). The longitudinal extent of the zone (13) must be greater than the distance from the sliding surface (20) to the nearest weld, but smaller than the width of the bar. The sliding surface may be hardened all the way, but for total avoidance of cracks hardening may be interrupted in the zone and some distance in front of and behind the zone. The hardness of the plates (15,16,17) should preferrably be the same within the zone as in other parts (11,14) of the bar, to ensure that the smooth long outward buckling shown in figure 2 occurs at a lower stress level than would be needed for abrupt local buckling as shown in figure 3.

Claims: CLAIMS 1. Chain saw guide bar comprising three plates joined by welding (15,16,17), having a nose (12), a clamping area (11) and a guiding groove (18) for a saw chain around the contour of the guide bar, characterized by having a zone (13) without welds immediately in front of the clamping area. 2. Chain saw guide bar according to claim 1, characterized by the zone extending in the longitudinal direction of the guide bar for a longer distance than the depth of the groove. 3. Chain saw guide bar according to claim 1 or 2, characterized by the zone extending in the longitudinal direction of the guide bar for a shorter distance than the width of the guide bar. 4. Chain saw guide bar according to claim 1, characterized by parts of the guide bar contour located outside of the zone having hardened sliding surfaces, and parts of the guide bar contour located inside the zone lacking hardened sliding surfaces. 5. Chain saw guide bar acording to claim 4, characterized by parts of the guide bar contour within the clamping area immediately behind the zone lacking hardened sliding surfaces. 6. Chain saw guide bar according to claim 1 , characterized by the plates except the sliding surfaces having the same hardness inside the zone as outside the zone.

Inventors: LEINI ARVO, LEINI, ARVO
Applicants: SANDVIK AB, SANDVIK AKTIEBOLAG (PUBL)
Application year: 1996
Main classification: B27B17
IPC codes: A01G3, B27B17