IMPROVEMENTS IN WHEELS
Year: 1879

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by John Elder at the Office of the
Commissioners of Patents on the 22nd April 1879.
JOHN ELDER, of Paisley, in the County of Renfrew, North Britain, Engineer.
"IMPROVEMENTS IN WHEELS."
This Invention has for its object the constructing of wheels with elastic spokes
or connections between the hub or centre and the rim or tire in an improved.
manner, and so that each spoke by bearing or suspending according to its positions
during the revolution may support its share of the weight bearing on the axle.
The improved wheels are advantageously applicable for vehicles of all kinds, and
they may also be used in other applications, as for flywheels and pulleys for driving
belts, for example. In the case of vehicles the elasticity of the improved wheels
will admit of the axles being fixed or connected to the bodies of the vehicles
without the intervention of the ordinary bearings springs, and whilst the elasticity
of the wheels will soften the jar and concussion which act vertically and are
mitigated by the ordinary bearing springs, it will also prevent or diminish any
irregular action which horizontal shocks may tend to produce. In this way the
draught of common-road vehicles will be rendered easier to horses, whilst in the
case of railway vehicles the ordinary buffer and draw springs may be dispensed
with, or at any rate their equalising and softening action may be very much
assisted. The use of the improved elastic wheels will diminish wear and tear not
only in the vehicles but also in the roads traversed by them.
In carrying out the Invention each wheel may be made with any suitable or
convenient number of spokes or connections between the hub and the rim. Each
spoke or connection consists of a bar or piece of steel or other suitable elastic metal
wbich is made at the ends, where it is fixed into the hub and rim respectively, and
for a certain distance from those ends of a square or other section, such that those
parts will not bend appreciably under the strains experienced, whilst the middle
part is made of a flat or broad and comparatively thin section placed so as to
stand edgeways or at right angles to the plane or disc of the wheel, the rigid parts
merging into the broad thin parts in a gradual manner. The middle part is bended
into a circular or similar form, and the ends pass beside each other. The outer
ends of the spokes or connections may be fixedto points of the rim radially opposite

page_text: to the points of attachment of the inner ends to the hub, or the outer points of
attachment may be disposed more or less round from the opposite points. The
circularly bended parts lie in the plane of the wheel or nearly so, and the alternate
spokes may have such circularly bended parts placed opposite ways. Instead of
the bended part of each spoke being in a circular form it may be in the form of the
numeral 8.
In cases in which a broad wheel might be desirable two or more separate tires
may be connected to the same hub by the improved elastic spokes, so that each
tire can accomodate itself independently to inequalities in the road. Or the
several tires may be connected to separate hubs placed close together on the axle, or
more or less apart.