Novel frictional-locking-mechanism for a flat belt: Theory, mechanism, and validation

Abstract

In this study, a novel mechanism that locks a flat belt using frictional force was proposed. The mechanism is composed of two important elements; the flat belt folds back and overlaps itself while coming into contact with a curved surface, and the contact region can be changed through the use of constrained rollers. The former of these two elements allows for a belt to be locked when a large tensile force is applied due to the resultant frictional force; some theories for analyzing this mechanism are proposed in this paper. The latter of the two elements, meanwhile, ensures that the belt remains locked or unlocked, and it switches the state of the belt from locked to unlocked (and vice versa) using only a small amount of power, despite a large force being applied to the belt. The proposed mechanism therefore results in an efficient locking device for flat belts. This mechanism, and the associated theoretical equations, were validated experimentally, and an example of a practical design using the proposed mechanism is described.