Elastic endless crawler

Claim 1

An elastic endless crawler for use with motor vehicles such as earth-moving vehicles having lower rollers for rolling on the crawler comprising, a crawler body of elastic material, said crawler body having a longitudinal direction and a transverse direction and also having an inner surface and an outer surface for engaging the ground and comprising an endless belt extending in said longitudinal direction; a pair of main cord layers embedded in said crawler body beneath said inner surface and comprising cords extending in said longitudinal direction of said crawler body to prevent elongation of said crawler body in said longitudinal direction, said layers being located at respective opposite side portions of said crawler body and being laterally spaced from a central portion of said crawler body, said central portion being free of said longitudinally extending cords; a plurality of cores embedded in said crawler body between said inner surface and said main cord layers, said cores having protrusions for engaging said lower rollers thereby to prevent said lower rollers from running off said crawler, said cores being arranged in parallel spaced relation at a right angle to said longitudinal direction of said crawler body; and a pair of sets of bias cord layers embedded in said crawler body between said main cord layers and said outer surface, each of said sets consisting of a plurality of bias cord layers, said bias cord layers of each of said sets comprising bias cords arranged in reciprocal mutually-opposite directions in relation to an imaginary straight line extending transversely of said crawler body, said imaginary straight line intersecting the longitudinal direction of said crawler body at a right angle, said sets being located at said respective opposite side portions of said crawler body and being laterally spaced from said central portion of said crawler body, said central portion being free of said bias cord layers; wherein said bias cords are arranged in reciprocal mutually-opposite directions in relation to said imaginary straight line at an angle of inclination θ of 5°≦θ≦45°; and wherein said cords constituting a pair of main cord layers and said cords constituting a pair of sets of bias cord layers are made of steel.