Patent GB-190821843-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to Gyroscopic Mechanism
Inventor: SCHERL RICHARD
IPC: G01C21/18
Filed: 1908-10-15
Granted: 1909-05-20
Abstract: 21,843. Scherl, R. Sept. 19, [date applied for under Section 91 of Patents &c. Act, 1907]. Gyroscopic apparatus.-A gyroscope for maintaining vehicles and other bodies in upright position is mounted in unstable equilibrium and in continuous operative connexion with the vehicle in such a manner that gyroscope and vehicle form a closed system, so that every movement of the one influences that of the other by the resulting gyroscopic momenta. Between the oscillation of the vehicle and the precessional movement of the gyroscope there must be a difference of phase of ninety degrees, in order that the speed of precession of the gyroscope may be greatest when the vehicle is in its position of greatest deviation and is therefore at rest. In order to preserve this difference in phase in spite of frictional forces, air resistance, and the like, the precession is accelerated by causing forces to act on the gyroscope axis in the first and third quadrants of its oscillation in the plane of that oscillation which is at right-angles to the plane of oscillation of the vehicle. For producing these acceleratingforces, two coils 15, 16 with movable cores 17, 18 are used. The cores are pivoted at 19, 20 to bell-crank levers 21, 22 which in their turn are rotatable about pins 23, 24 and are connected by means of rods 25, 26 to the axlebearing 9 supporting the axis of rotation 5 of the gyroscope 4. Tbus when the coils are unexcited the gyroscope is in unstable equilibrium. The spindle 7 of the gyroscope is provided with two contact-arms 27, 28 sliding over sectors 29, 30 and 31, 32. The sectors 29, 31 are conductors throughout the whole of their length, while the contact sectors 30, 32 are covered on one half with an insulating-layer, these halves being shaded in the drawing. The contact-arm 27 makes, therefore, an electric connexion between the sectors 29, 30 when it moves along the portion of the path situated forwards in Fig. 5, but does not make an electric connexion when it passes over the back portion. In the case of the arm 28, the reverse is the case. On the spindle 7 is mounted a contactarm 33 not secured but with a frictional connexion so that it participates in an oscillation of the spindle only until it strikes a resistance. Such a resistance is formed by the two contact-springs 34, 35 mounted on the frame of the carriage and insulated from it. When the gyroscope begins its forward oscillation from the back position shown by A in Fig. 4, the contact-arm 33 is driven by friction by the spindle 7 and brought into engagement with the front contact-spring 34. A circuit is then closed, from one pole of the battery 36 through the wire 38 to the coil 15, thence through the wire 39 to the contact-arm 33, further through the contact spring 34 and the wire 40 to the contact sector 30, and finally through the contact-arm 27 and the contact sector 29 to the wire 41, and thus to the battery 36. The gyroscope thus receives its additional precessional movement produced by the tension of the core 15. When the gyroscope approaches its central position and reaches a portion corresponding to line m in Fig. 4, the contact-arm 27 comes on the insulated portion of the contact sector 30 and so breaks the circuit, and the oscillation from m to B in Fig. 4 is completed without any outer forces acting on the gyroscope. Similar forces becomes operative at the commencement of the return movement and act from B to n, Fig. 4. The additional precession thus accelerates the speed of the gyroscope, and thereby retards the oscillations of the car, so that'the centre of gravity of the system makes gradually-decreasing, oscillations about the position of rest, and finally becomes stationary.