From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Proposed re-design of a steering box and pendulum lever to improve impact resistance.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 153\4\ scan0131 | |
| Date | 12th May 1943 guessed | |
| -2- The Lever would be made strong enough dimensionally to meet all normal road deflections well within the elastic deflection of the lever, and the basic fatigue effects resulting from such small impacts; then when abnormal impact took place at intervals the effect would be to relieve the load by plastic deflection of the lever. The object of using the low carbon high nickel type of material, usually used for case hardening, is to ensure a very low work hardening factor, as the lever will not fail until locally it has been raised by work hardening from plastic deflection to somewhere near the brinell of the present levers. This particular method of dealing with it demands clear perception of fine differences and a careful balancing up of all the factors. (b) The introduction of a large elastic deflection by means of springs - this however I do not think is easier or as practicable as (a). (c) The solution which I think is easily practicable will demand a re-design of the steering box but I am certain nothing short of a drastic alteration will meet this trouble. The re-design of the steering box should be made in such a way that it makes provision for :- (1) A Flexible Drive from the Rocker Shaft to the inside of the Pendulum Lever. (2) The Pendulum Lever should be mounted rotationally free on the outside of the tube carrying the cam or gear. (3) There should be slots cut into the end of the Pendulum Lever boss and in the collar carried in the tube referred to under heading (2). The projections on the boss lever fitting the projections in the collar on the shaft. These spaces however will not control the lever normally, they will have wide clearances to permit easily deflecting the shaft referred to under heading (1) which will take all the normal steering to deflect through a wide range without coming on the stops. If and when one gets a blow driving slowly inclined into a high curb or bank, this will still cause a failure in the steering but it would be in the flexible shaft referred to under heading (1). continued | ||