Process and device for regulating the movement of a member by employing a fluid flow

• US 4,625,933 A
• Filed: 09/17/1984
• Issued: 12/02/1986
• Est. Priority Date: 10/13/1983
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Aerospatiale Societe Nationale Industrielle
• Original Assignee: Aerospatiale Societe Nationale Industrielle
• Inventors: Croiset, Pierre, Poveda, Pierre, Luciano, Gerard
• Primary Examiner(s): Jillions, John M.
• Application Number:
  US06/651,089
• Time in Patent Office: 806 Days
• Field of Search: 242/99, 242/156, 242/75.4, 188/298, 267/122, 267/123, 182/233, 182/238, 254/377
• US Class Current: 242/396
• CPC Class Codes: B64G 1/222 for deploying structures between a stowed and deployed state
• CPC Class Codes: B64G 1/2229 characterised by the deployment actuating mechanism inflating B64G1/2227
• CPC Class Codes: B64G 1/44 using radiation, e.g. deployable solar arrays

Abstract

The invention relates to a process and device for regulating at any instant the speed of a mobile member, such as a pulley, moving in a stroke of determined uniform direction, by employing a fluid passing under pressure through an orifice of restricted section. According to the invention, said pressurized fluid is made to pass several times alternately in one direction and in the other through said orifice, during said stroke of determined uniform direction. The invention is more particularly applicable to the deployment of appendices mounted on board space vessels.

Claims

1. A device for regulating at any instant the speed of a mobile member moving in a stroke of determined uniform direction by employing a fluid passing under pressure through an orifice of restricted section, comprising:

(A) an aligned assembly of two bellows filled with an incompressible fluid, sadi bellows being coaxial and joined by a common partition having located thereon said orifice of restricted section, and said bellows being compressible parallel to their common axis;

(B) said mobile member comprising a pulley coaxial to said bellows having wound thereon a cable, whereby movement of said cable rotates said pulley;

(c) cams for alternately compressing ends of said bellows opposite said partition as said pulley rotates for causing said fluid to be passed through said orifice several times in alternate directions during rotation of said pulley.

2. The device of claim 1, wherein the common partition and the bellows are rotatable with said pulley, and wherein said cams are in fixed relationship to said rotatable pulley, common partition and bellows.

3. The device of claim 1, wherein said cams are rotatable with said pulley, and wherein both the common partition and the bellows are in fixed relationship to said rotatable cams and pulley.

4. The device of claim 1, wherein the two bellows of an assembly are identical and the alternative movements of compression of the two bellows are of equal amplitudes, although of opposite directions.

5. The device of claim 1, further comprising at least one spacer means connecting said ends to maintain an overall volume of said bellows constant.

6. The device of claim 5, wherein said spacer means is elastic to allow expansion of the fluid contained in the bellows and to exert an elastic force at least slightly greater than a force of actuation of the bellows, whereby pressure of the bellows when they are drawn is not zero.