The individual sections making up the treads of this concept tank are comprised of solid drive wheels aligned at right angles to the direction the tread is travelling allowing the tank to move quickly from side to side when at rest or at full speed.
The maneuverability of a tank with this type of tread would be unmatched by any current design.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 28 2024 (probably best turn volume off and subtitles off for full effect) https://www.youtube...watch?v=u1ZB_rGFyeUWheels not tracks, but same basic concept. [pocmloc, Sep 29 2024] Sensible link showing device https://en.wikipedi.../wiki/Honda_UNI-CUB [pocmloc, Sep 29 2024] Airtrax Sidewinder https://www.youtube...watch?v=E2b_69GpmicIdeal for AGVs [bhumphrys, Sep 29 2024] Nice! [+]-- doctorremulac3, Sep 28 2024 Similar to the Airtrax Sidewinder?-- bhumphrys, Sep 29 2024 Cool links!
My concept will perform on rough terrain though.-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Sep 29 2024 It's not elegant to use a noun as a verb, but perhaps we need to workshop in inverted commas this concept?-- bhumphrys, Sep 30 2024 The ting about rough terrain performance is basically to do with the size of the wheels, and the ground clearance of the non-wheel elements.
In a track laying vehicle there is a kind of hard limit on the size of the small wheels, that they have to be within the thickness of the track, they have to hinge around the drive sprockets, and they have to return upside down above the section of track that is on the ground.
There is also the factor that when the sideways small wheels are going around the drive sprockets, their inner edges can be touching but their outer edges are then separated by a certain distance, because of segments of circles etc.
Perhaps instead of small wheels embedded in the tracks you could have small tracks running laterally across the main track. On the other hand this makes turning harder.
But I think the off-road capability of your device will basically be similar to a normal vehicle with its main wheels the same sizes as your small "solid drive wheels". No sensible way around this problem as far as I can see.-- pocmloc, Sep 30 2024 [Poc], although you say that you can't see a sensible way around this problem, maybe we would just need to re-invent the wheel? I have a cunning solution that [2 fries] could perhaps develop in order to address much of your correct analysis, but I won't give it away because I feel uncomfortable about it. Peace is more important than coming up with even more effective weapons of destruction don't you think?-- bhumphrys, Sep 30 2024 This ain't gonna be small is it?-- 21 Quest, Sep 30 2024 [bhumphreys] there are legit peaceful uses for all terrain tracked vehicles that could drive sideways, so just go ahead with your solution but add a footnote "not to be used for bad purposes"-- pocmloc, Sep 30 2024 Er- I wonder whether the person whos bones are getting crunched are going to be able to get any consolation whatsoever from my footnote? But perhaps the ambulance that picks up the remains of the person could also have these tracks so I suppose that offsets the evil slightly.
All that my idea was, and it's just a starter, was this:
Have a look at the wheels on the Apollo Lunar Roving Vehicle, which will help you with your mental image.
Each of the ambulance track segments looks like one of these, without the hub, i.e. it's a squishy mesh doughnut with riveted treads.
Now thread these mesh wheels onto the larger track, as beads on a necklace. The larger track has an oval cross-section. The circular wheel then distorts into a flattened oval. The flattened wheel has a much greater area of contact with the terrain.
Then, all we need to do in order to sidwind the ambulance is spin all the LRV track segments simultaneously, a bit like worry beads. OK I don't know how to do this, but can't tell you for sure that it can't be done.
I also take your point [Poc] that the treads need to be gap-toothed in order to go round the sprockets.-- bhumphrys, Oct 01 2024 random, halfbakery