Patent ID: 7559743

Claim:
A protection system for providing a hinge for rotary wing aircraft transmitting high dynamic and large magnitude movement and/or forces with protection against aggressive atmospheres; the target hinge comprising at least: an upstream member generally extending along a longitudinal direction; a downstream member generally extending along an intersecting direction, forming a nonzero offset angle relative to the longitudinal direction; and the upstream and downstream members respectively including a male coupling core and a female coupling bearing, or vice versa; the female bearing being concave and complementary to the male core so that the coupling core is movably received in the bearing so as to allow relative rotation to take place between the upstream member and the downstream member; the protection system comprising an elastomer confinement structure having at least: two through openings, respectively an upstream opening and a downstream opening for the upstream member and for the downstream member, the upstream and downstream openings extending substantially in respective pierced surfaces that when the system is in the rest position, are perpendicular respectively to the longitudinal direction and to the intersecting direction; a static cap of the confinement structure made of an elastomer material and designed substantially to enclose at least the male core and the female bearing; the static cap defining at least one downstream opening for passing the downstream member out from the structure; an elastomer-material upstream collar of the structure for locally surrounding the upstream member; said collar being movable and defining at least the upstream opening for passing the downstream member out from the structure; at least one hinge bellows of elastomer material held between the static cap and the movable upstream collar of the structure; each through downstream opening having a rigid downstream anchor ring secured rigidly in said downstream opening and also designed to be statically secured to the downstream member; while each upstream through opening includes an upstream ring acting as a rigid receiver on which firstly the movable collar of the structure is secured in releasable manner, the upstream ring also being designed to be rigidly secured to the upstream member; the confinement structure possessing resiliently fastenable inspection means between the upstream ring and the movable collar serving to secure the confinement structure to the ring in releasable manner when the protection system is in an operating state; the confinement structure comprises the static cap, the upstream collar, the hinge bellows, and the resiliently fastenable inspection means forming a single piece of elastomer, said single piece of elastomer having a snap action between the upstream ring and the removable collar, thereby to be resiliently fastenable, and portions of the single piece of elastomer that have snap action is less flexible than the bellows.