Chamfered roller mechanical transmission

Claim 1

A chamfered roller mechanical transmission comprising in combination: (a) an outer conical rotating member with an inner surface including a plurality of circular cylindrical surfaces of progressively varying diameters and a plurality of circular frustum surfaces disposed coaxially in an alternating fashion wherein each adjacent pair of said plurality of circular cylindrical surfaces are interconnected by each of said circular frustum surfaces in a continuous configuration; (b) an inner conical rotating member with an outer surface including a plurality of circular cylindrical surfaces of progressively varying diameters and a plurality of circular frustum surfaces disposed coaxially in an alternating fashion wherein each adjacent pair of said plurality of circular cylindrical surfaces are interconnected by each of said circular frustum surfaces in a continuous configuration, said inner conical rotating member rotatably disposed inside of said outer conical rotating member in a coaxial relationship providing a series of circular cylindrical shell voids of a constant gap dimension and of progressively varying mean diameters and a series of circular frustum shell voids of another constant gap dimension interconnecting each adjacent pair of said series of circular cylindrical shell voids; (c) a plurality of chamfered rollers rotatably disposed in said shell void intermediate said outer and inner conical rotating members on a common hypothetical plane perpendicular to the central axis of said outer and inner conical rotating members in a substantially axisymmetric pattern with respect to the central axis of said outer and inner conical rotating members, said plurality of chamfered rollers with the central axis disposed parallel to the central axis of said outer and inner conical rotating members including a circular cylindrical mid-section having a constant diameter matched to said a constant gap distance of said circular cylindrical shell voids and further including two chamfered extremities on opposite sides of the cylindrical mid-section wherein the diagonal distance between two diametrically opposite chamfered faces of said two chamfered extremities is matched to said another constant gap distance of said circular frustum shell voids; whereby, a rotating motion of one of said outer and inner conical rotating members is transmitted to another rotating motion of the other of said outer and inner conical rotating members by means of pressurized frictional contact provided by either said circular cylindrical mid-section of said plurality of chamfered rollers in line-contact with said circular cylindrical surfaces of said outer and inner conical rotating members or said two chamfered extremities of said chamfered rollers respectively in contact with said circular frustum surfaces of said outer and inner conical rotating members; (d) means for preventing said plurality of chamfered rollers from orbiting about the central axis of said outer and inner conical rotating members; (e) means for maintaining said plurality of chamfered rollers on said common hypothetical plane perpendicular to the central axis of said outer and inner conical rotating members in said substantially axisymmetric pattern and for shifting said plurality of chamfered rollers in unison in a direction parallel to the central axis of said outer and inner conical rotating members; and (f) means for connecting a power-input shaft to one of said outer and inner conical rotating members and a power-output shaft to another of said outer and inner conical rotating members.