CURRENT COLLECTOR FOR AN ELECTRICALLY OR HYBRID-ELECTRICALLY POWERED ROAD VEHICLE

Abstract

A current collector for an electrically powered vehicle has an articulated supporting rod supporting a rocker assembly and a lifting drive. The supporting rod is a pantograph with a lower arm and an upper arm and an elbow joint. The rocker assembly has a rocker frame with mutually parallel upper and lower transverse beams. The beams are connected centrally by a center strut and on each end side by a lateral strut on swivel joints. The upper arm is connected on the contact wire side to the center strut via a rocker joint. The contact strips of the two contact poles are supported on the rocker frame symmetrically with respect to the center strut. In this way a current collector is provided by which, with a simpler construction, a consistent contact force can be achieved between contact strips and contact wires of the overhead line system.

Claims

1-9. (canceled)

10. A current collector for an electrically or hybrid electrically powered road vehicle for feeding electrical traction energy from a two-pole overhead line system with one contact wire for each contact pole, the current collector comprising: an articulated supporting rod formed as a pantograph with a lower arm, an upper arm, and an elbow joint connecting said lower arm to said upper arm; said supporting rod having a contact wire side supporting a rocker assembly with at least one contact strip for each contact pole and a vehicle side with a base joint for support on the road vehicle; said rocker assembly having a rocker frame with an upper transverse beam, a lower transverse beam arranged parallel to said upper transverse beam, a center strut, and two lateral struts; said center strut centrally connecting said upper transverse beam to said lower transverse beam and said lateral struts connecting said upper and lower transverse beams at each end thereof, said lateral struts extending parallel to said center strut and being pivotally mounted on swivel joints having mutually parallel rotation axes; said upper arm being connected on the contact wire side to said center strut via a rocker joint; said rocker joint, said elbow joint, and said base joint have axes of rotation running parallel to one another; and said contact strips of said contact poles being supported symmetrically with respect to said center strut on said rocker frame; and a lifting drive coupled to said supporting rod and configured for lifting said contact strips from a lower storage position into an upper contact position.

11. The current collector according to claim 10, wherein said upper arm is connected and articulated at the road vehicle via a pull rod and said lower arm is connected and articulated at said center strut via a coupling rod, to guide said center strut in parallel in a vertically aligned manner when lifting said contact strips.

12. The current collector according to claim 10, which comprises linearly guided spring cups resiliently supporting said contact strips on said rocker frame.

13. The current collector according to claim 10, which comprises leaf springs disposed to resiliently support said contact strips on said rocker frame.

14. The current collector according to claim 10, wherein said contact strips are supported on said lateral struts of said rocker frame and said transverse beams are resiliently flexible beams.

15. The current collector according to claim 10, which comprises stop elements disposed to limit a rotational movement of said transverse beams about said swivel joints of said center strut.

16. The current collector according to claim 10, wherein said rocker assembly comprises a protective bracket which is arranged and shaped to prevent a dipping of a contact wire into a space between said contact poles below a contact strip.

17. The current collector according to claim 10, wherein said rocker assembly is configured to only supports one contact strip per contact pole.

18. A road vehicle, comprising an electric or hybrid-electric drive and a current collector according to claim 10.

Description

[0014] Further properties and advantages of the invention will emerge from the description which follows of a preferred exemplary embodiment with reference to the drawings, in which a diagrammatic view is shown of

[0015] FIG. 1 A first exemplary embodiment of a current collector according to the invention,

[0016] FIG. 2 The current collector from FIG. 1 where there is a height difference between the contact strips,

[0017] FIG. 3 A second exemplary embodiment of a current collector according to the invention with limiting elements,

[0018] FIG. 4 A third exemplary embodiment of a current collector according to the invention with leaf springs,

[0019] FIG. 5 A fourth exemplary embodiment of a current collector according to the invention with flexurally elastic transverse beams,

[0020] FIG. 6 A fifth exemplary embodiment of a current collector according to the invention with a protective bracket,

[0021] FIG. 7 The current collector from FIG. 6 where there is a height difference between the contact strips,

[0022] FIG. 8 A sixth exemplary embodiment of a current collector according to the invention with another protective bracket and

[0023] FIG. 9 The current collector from FIG. 8 where there is a height difference between the contact strips.

[0024] According to FIG. 1, a road vehicle 1 is equipped with a current collector 2 for feeding traction energy from a two-pole overhead line system having contact wires 3 which is designed as a supply and return conductor. The road vehicle may be a heavy commercial vehicle, such as a semi-trailer tractor or a bus, having an electric or hybrid-electric traction drive. Only one point of the road vehicle 1 connected to the chassis of the road vehicle 1, on which the current collector 2 is supported, is indicated. Of the overhead line system, only the two contact wires 3 are shown, which run via hangers on suspension cables above the electrified traffic lane of a roadway traveled by the road vehicle 1.

[0025] The current collector 2 comprises an articulated supporting rod 4 which is designed as pantograph-like semi-scissors and has a lower arm 6 which is supported on the road vehicle 1 via a base joint 5 and an upper arm 8 which is connected to the lower arm 6 via an elbow joint 7. A pull rod 9 articulates the vehicle-side end of the upper arm 8 to the road vehicle 1 or to a base frame of the current collector 2 connected thereto. A coupling rod 10 is connected in an articulated manner to the lower arm 6. The supporting rod 4 described is shown in a side view in FIG. 1 for presentation purposes, a longitudinal axis of the vehicle would thus extend from right to left here for this part of the figure.

[0026] However, for presentation purposes, the rocker assembly 11 supported by the supporting rod 4 on the contact wire side is shown in a front view in FIG. 1, a longitudinal axis of the vehicle would therefore extend perpendicular to the drawing plane for this part of the figure. The rocker assembly 11 supports only one contact strip 12 per contact pole, which are parallel to one another and transverse to the longitudinal axis of the vehicle. Each contact strip 12 comprises an elongated carbon piece with an upward-facing contact surface, which is ground by the contact wire 3 for energy transmission during travel, and at each end a downwardly bent drain horn 13.

[0027] The rocker assembly 11 has a rocker frame 14 having an upper transverse beam 15 and a lower transverse beam 16 which are arranged parallel or almost parallel to one another. The upper transverse beam 15 is connected to the lower transverse beam 16 centrally by a center strut 17 and at each end by a lateral strut 18. The center strut 17 and the lateral struts 18 are arranged parallel or almost parallel to one another and have swivel joints 19 at the six connection points, each with a rotational degree of freedom R. The six axes of rotation run parallel to one another, in FIG. 1 perpendicular to the drawing plane, so that the rocker frame 14 defines a parallelogram or almost a parallelogram. The center strut 17 is connected to the upper arm 8 via a rocker joint 20 and to the coupling rod 10 via a coupling joint 21, which enables a rotational movement of the parallelogram plane of the rocker frame 14 relative to the upper arm 8 and the coupling rod 10. The axes of rotation of the rocker joint 20, the coupling joint 21, the elbow joint 7 and the base joint 5 run parallel to one another and to the transverse axis of the vehicle.

[0028] The current collector 2 further comprises, for example, a lifting drive 22 designed as an air bellows, which is coupled, for example, to the supporting rod 4 via a bellows lever 23 in such a way that the contact strips 12 can be raised from a lower storage position to an upper contact position. The supporting rod 4 forms a parallel guide for the rocker frame 14, so that its parallelogram plane always remains vertically aligned when the rocker assembly 11 is being raised and lowered.

[0029] The contact strips 12 of the two contact poles are supported symmetrically with respect to the center strut 17 and thus symmetrically with respect to the upper arm 8 of the support linkage 4 on the lateral struts 16 of the rocker frame 14. The contact strips 12 can move vertically due to the parallelogram mechanism of the rocker frame 14 and thus adapt to height differences h between the contact wires 3 according to FIG. 2. For this purpose, the transverse beams 15, 16 each rotate by an angle of rotation against the horizontal. As a result, a symmetrical introduction of the contact forces into the rocker frame 14 is made possible, which leads to a constant pressing force of the contact strips 12 of both contact poles regardless of the lateral contact point of the contact wires 3 on the contact strips 12.

[0030] The rotational movement of the transverse beams 15, 16 about the axes of rotation of the swivel joint 19 of the center strut 17 is limited by limiting means according to FIG. 3. By limiting the angle of rotation , the possible height difference h between the contact strips 12 of the two contact poles is limited. The limiting means can be designed as mechanical stop elements 24 against which the transverse beams 15, 16 strike when the maximum angle of rotation is reached.

[0031] The contact strips 12 are resiliently supported on the rocker frame in order to reduce the impact load when making contact between the contact strips 12 and the contact wires 6 and thus reduce the risk of spalling or breakouts from the carbon pieces of the contact strips 12 when connecting. According to FIG. 1 to FIG. 3 and FIG. 6 to FIG. 9, the resilient support can be formed by linearly guided spring cups 25 between the rocker frame 14 and the contact strips 12. According to FIG. 4, laterally projecting leaf springs 26, on which the contact strips 12 are supported, may also be attached to the rocker frame 14. According to FIG. 5, the transverse beams 15, 16 of the rocker frame 14 can also be designed such that they can be bent in a spring-elastic manner, so that the contact strips 12 can carry out a spring movement by bending the transverse beams 15, 16 by supporting them on the lateral struts 18.

[0032] According to FIG. 6 to FIG. 9, the rocker assembly 11 has a protective bracket 27. The protective bracket 27 can be mounted at its ends via a bracket joint 28 according to FIG. 6 and FIG. 7 on the rocker frame 14 or according to FIG. 8 and FIG. 9 on the drain horns 13 of the contact strips 12. In the case of all height differences h, the upwardly curved protective bracket 27 bridges the gap between the two contact strips 12. It thus prevents the dipping of a contact wire 3 into a space between the two contact poles below a contact strip 12. This prevents a contact wire 3 which leaves the carbon piece of a contact strip 12 in the direction of the gap or space during a steering maneuver of the road vehicle 1 from falling into the space below a contact strip 12 due to the righting moment of the lifting drive 22. This prevents damage to the current collector 2 and the overhead line system by threading a contact wire 3 into the space.