The principle of drive of the truck by the muscular force sitting in her man was tenacious. He became particularly alluring during times when seen for the application to asphalt roads. Swept not just the “horseless carriages”, and a fast and powerful car, soared into the sky, the airplanes, and spaceships go to distant planets. But living in the two age-old dream: to fly like a bird and push some little crew to my muscles. When she was born, which in ancient times? Appeared clockworks, water rotated the wheels of mills and pumps, people are already well controlled with sails. But… the energy of falling water to a moving cart will not fit, the springs are weak and unreliable, and the sails are only good in the good wind, and it was mostly on the water. And like doesn’t depend on…
One of the first, probably, attempts to realize the idea of using own strength to cast a light vehicle in the movement belongs to the Augsburg carpenter Walter Goltana. Is he in the early fifteenth century, left the narrow streets of their town on an unusual four-building, caught by the muscular self-propelled carriage. Pulling an endless rope, the rider drives the rotation of the two drums. Lower longitudinal rails, forced to rotate a toothed wheel rigidly mounted on the rear axle. Needless to say that the speed of the wheelchair was not higher than that of the pedestrian. But what about the wheel? Well, in those days the problem turn still did not confuse inventors. If you had to change direction, the rider got out of the cart and lifting the front, zeroing in sleigh in the right direction.
The crew Goltana were single. But one of Auguste from Memmingen, in 1447, he built a giant (even today’s standards) self-propelled machine on four huge wheels. She could carry several dozen people. Of course, on the speed history is silent, but this was not important in those days. More importantly, the car was moving! Through ingenious devices, levers, rollers, winches inside the crew, people rotated all four wheels of the wagon. The designer has taken care so that in case you got stuck in the rut of one of the wheels to pull the car on a smooth road. Here it is, the prototype of the modern four-wheel drive off-road vehicles!
On the principle of muscular strength was created, and other self-propelled carriages of the middle ages. In 1459 in the triumphal procession of German Emperor Maximilian I attended an unusual crew. It was a six wheel is a Hoop, inside which housed the reigning persons. The crew of the wheel moved in because the servants were crossed on its inner surface, and the direction of motion regulated long arm walking beside the servant. Then there was a wooden four-wheeled carriage, driven by walking beside and behind him by the servants, who with the help of levers rotated installed on the back of the shafts and flywheels. It’s nothing but sketches of such machines: other reliable data about their existence is not. The design of these carts were engaged, in particular, the famous painter Albrecht dürer, who has left us several drawings of their inventions.
“Samaritana” wonder chariot of Emperor Maximilian I (1459).
“Samonella” the carriage of I. P. Kulibin (1791).
The muscular crew watchmaker Farfara (1685).
The muscular wagon Englishman John Bever (XVIII).
In 1685, the famous Nuremberg watchmaker Stefan Fahler broke his leg. This seemingly insignificant purely personal event became the impetus… for the further development and improvement of self-propelled crew — so far only in the form of muscle wagon. Fehler not a very pleasing prospect to use crutches or stay at home. He built a small three-wheeled carriage, on which “he could go to Church without anybody’s help.” It is clear that here the Speed was not so hot. In a wheelchair, he used his native clockwork. Only the power of springs and weights were replaced by own muscles. Spinning special handle, Fahler through a system of gears drives the rotation of the front wheel. With this scheme, in common modern motorized wheelchairs and cars with front wheel drive.
Your contribution to the development of “zambelich machines” made by our compatriots. In 1752, in Russia was built the first such crew, set in motion a complex system of levers and pedals that were managed by two footmen standing at the back. Its Creator — Leonti Lukyanovich the Shamshurenkov, a peasant from Nizhny Novgorod province, the great Russian inventor and self-taught, endowed with great imagination and ingenuity. 21 June, 1751, he sent to the Senate a Commission to Moscow a petition to grant him permission and financial support for “…sdelany stroller sambegou that can run without a horse. Such a wheelchair he Leontius, can do genuinely, he invented a machine on four wheels, with tools so that it will run and without a horse will only run through the tools the two people standing on the same stroller, except for sitting it idle, and run it through some long distance and not only on the level location, but also to the mountain, which is not a very cool place and the stroller can made to be, of course, three months later, with all perfection, and for approbation to the making of the first stroller he needs from the Treasury of money is not more than 30 rubles…”.
Only a year later in St. Petersburg Shamshurenkov “all good” started to implement his plan. And here’s the first of November 1752 stroller was fully ready to test. Till our days there are no drawings or paintings, or even a sensible description of this self-propelled carriage with a muscular drive. For the few documents it is possible to judge that the stroller was a four-wheeled, closed and resembled a coach — not bulky, but fairly lightweight and durable. Two people using pedals spun the rear wheels and controlled her movement. The crew was carrying at least two passengers.
A year later, however, the 60-year-old inventor, still full of strength and energy, again wrote to St. Petersburg: “…and now you still can for testing to make a sled that will go without horses in the winter, and the sample can go in the summer and with the need… But before I made the sidecar is in the action, but merely not so soon go and even if allowed, you can do the same Oborne and running soon and stronger than the skill”. But these proposals were refused, have been frustrated all further requests. Shortly about the inventor and his “Camberley wheelchair” forgotten, and their fate is unknown.
Another talented Russian mechanic Ivan Kulibin worked for several years on the original stroller and finished it in 1791. All the mechanics seems to be unaffected, but the eyes of modern designer immediately distinguish a number of even in these times of ingenious solutions. Kulibin crew performed a three-wheeled, one passenger. Wooden frame consisted of two longitudinal beams connected by cross members. Front to it is attached to the turntable with a single guide wheel, controlled through rods and levers. At the rear of the frame mounted two other wheels of larger diameter. Pedals or shoes, Kulibin, alternately pressed standing at the back. He pulls through and hrapovic mechanisms brought heavy horizontal flywheel, eases work on the pedals and smartcase machine running. The rotation of the vertical shaft of the flywheel is transmitted through the simplified gear transmission on the right rear wheel.
Interesting design of the transmission mechanism of the torque on the driving wheel, which became the prototype of modern gear boxes. On the axis of the ear was a drum with three toothed crowns of different diameters and with different number of teeth. Gear of the longitudinal shaft, moving along the diameter of the drum, could connect with any crown, changing the gear ratio, and hence the speed of rotation of the wheels and the force applied.
“Camarada” was the freewheel, which gave people the opportunity to relax, using the momentum potoski and flywheel. And another great technical foresight can be detected in a wheelchair Kulibina: axis wheels rolled on three special rollers. This device, the precursor of the modern roller bearing! In short, a manual transmission and the bearings on this cart was designed and used for half a century before they appeared in France and England. A closer look at the design of the “samochody” in the Department of automotive engineering of the Polytechnic Museum in Moscow, which houses its operating model.
Still, the improvements introduced by Kulibin in the design of the wheelchair, are unable to turn it into a self-propelled carriage, too weak and unreliable was a living engine. Similar attempts to create a “muscular” transport repeatedly been made in the eighteenth century, and abroad. However, all such machines had only the original toy in the yard. It is known that in England a single wagon like kulibinskom, only four-wheeled, built by John Bevers.
Project crew “dog engine”
A wagon with an engine of one horsepower.
Omnibus Horthy-Croat with the flywheel on the roof (1857).
Flywheel “car” Lanchester (1905).
In short, “camobogia machine” was unreliable and practically unacceptable. And all the Tali they were the first steps to the satisfaction of the human desire to move faster. There is, of course, and would-be inventors, who offered meaningless structures included in the Fund avtovelomoto. Here’s one of those ideas with a regular cart to put the oar-rake and build them from the ground. In another “stunning” device was supposed to use the principle of the squirrel cage, but with dogs. To do this, the front wheel of the wagon was supposed to be in the form of a drum, inside of which animals were supposed to run. Was not less than the original project: to press the pedal wanted to make a horse. But… dogs and horses refused to perform such difficult duties, and those “future crew” and was stuck in place, lost in the annals of the history of technology.
But the same story was selected in the muscle projects all more or less rational. Remember the flywheel on “camarade” Kulibina. This idea was further developed by Joseph Horthy Hungarian-Croat, offered in 1857, a multi-piece omnibus, on the roof of which was fitted with a huge flywheel; the torque from him through the bevel gear and shaft is transmitted to the rear wheels of the crew. The duties of the “driver” had only to advertise it. Three years later, Russian engineer V. I. Shuberskaya developed the project “mahoota”, also uses the energy of the rotating flywheel. And in 1905, an Englishman Lanchester patented “flywheel car”. One or two heavy flywheel with a mechanical transmission rotates the wheels of the car. To disperse the flywheels were the motors, but you could do it manually.
And now, in our days, energy crisis and lack of exercise, the dominance of cars in large cities, noise, pollution of the atmosphere forced once again to pay attention to some “muscle” vehicles, once driven powerful and compact engines. To them first of all it is necessary to carry bicycles, and carriages made — pedal cars, driven by human muscles.
From the recumbent bike has simple chain drive, lightweight wheels; the vehicle — drivetrain, body, lighting, the beginnings of comfort. Design all nodes aimed at fulfilling the main condition — the maximum simplification of work of the driver. So turned round of the spiral development of muscular vehicles, which began five centuries ago.
Today on the streets of Tokyo and Amsterdam, Paris and Milan — many cities in the world there, he will fly in a dense stream of transport non-motorised machines in one or two or even a dozen other people. Them every when the pedals or pushing the levers of the actuator. What could the car keep up — certainly not in speed, in efficiency, maneuverability, safety for the environment: many more advantages! And pedal the current citizen, suffering from immobility, is useful.
Non-motorized machines are built in various variants: from nimble single-karts to gigantic multiple of the “belarusov” — three or four-wheeled carriages without the body General transmission to rear drive wheels. While many of them created from motives of self-promotion, or desire to surprise compatriots, to attract attention, to cause a sensation.
One of the first projects small valbusa, 21, proposed in 1949, the Frenchman Pierre-albert Farce. But the Dane Tag Croshaw clearly outperformed all competitors by building velocidade tricycles weighing more than 3 tons, designed for 35 (!) people. For him, it took 78 old bikes, 35 saddles, pedals 70, three car wheels Only length 70 chain drives amounted to more than 50 m! The only practical use for this monster Croshaw yet found that occasionally rolls on it to the local kids.
We have already talked about built in our country light-karts: Kharkov crew of “Vita” (“M-K”, 1976, № 7), a folding velomobile “Kolibri” (“M-K”, 1979, No. 12). A few of the pedal cars with streamlined bodywork was created by the students and staff of Vilnius civil engineering Institute. In the winter of 1981 even hosted the country’s first competition muscle cars.
But, no matter how good the pedal cars, while they exist in single copies and became a noticeable phenomenon in traffic flow in large cities. However, in Japan, where problems of traffic congestion and air pollution by exhaust gases is particularly sharp, have already started serial production of several types of non-motorized equipment: easy pedicar tricycle with canopy and a more comfortable four-wheeled. The average speed is low — 10-15 km/h, but it’s enough for short trips. Such vehicles will be useful not only for personal use but also for postmen, doctors, district clinics; to teach young people the rules of traffic usage on the territory of large enterprises, farms, construction sites.
Recumbent makes today the first and faltering steps (this despite almost five hundred years of history!), but a huge advantage is simple and affordable transport determine its great future. There is still something to think about and to work with inventors in this ancient and, perhaps, simultaneously, the youngest mode of transport, does not require the engine, serving to human health, And we hope that Amateur designers, readers of our journal will do its part.
Using the experience of previous generations, lifting them achieve a new level of quality, the development of scientific thought is moving up in a spiral. Not accidentally, the inventors, creating increasingly sophisticated machines, often return to the experience of its predecessors — rely in their search for designs of bygone years.