Portal axle

Portal axles are a special form of the idler shaft. They are installed on the one hand to off-road vehicles to reach a higher ground clearance, as well as low-floor vehicles in public transport, in order to realize vehicle designs with the lowest possible floor heights can. In this case, the axle body is rotated by 180 °. One builds an offset gear in the wheel hub of a driven axle and routed the axle tube with the removable axle and differential gear in the air. The gain in ground clearance is between 5 and 40 cm, depending on the axle. They exist as a portal swing axle as the VW Kubelwagen, Tatra 805, Puch Haflinger, Praga V3S and Pinzgauer or Unimog Trucks, Daimler -Benz, Volvo C303, the Lancia/Fiat/Iveco-ACL75/ACM80, the Iveco 75-13 AW and Magirus-Deutz 130M7FAL or the Renault TRM 2000, and at the Sisu SA110 and Tatra T810. In the U.S. HMMWV transmission stocky hubs are combined with double wishbones.

When the transaxle represent a reduction simultaneously, the stub axles and the differential by the reduced torque loads may be smaller and thus more easily carried out, similar to the axes of the planet gears.

In low floor buses contrast inverted portal axles are used with off-center lying differential housing to allow for a low floor level in the rear axle. These counts not the high ground clearance, but rather the opposite desire inside the vehicle as low as possible passenger floor to realize no steps or steep climbs in the center aisle.

When ( single wheel ) Portal drive a low -floor tram as the R- Railcars tram Frankfurt is even obviate a continuous drive axle.

The 1950 to 1967 produced the first generation of the VW transporter had but not to increase a portal axle with reduction gears to the ground clearance, but to be able to install was a standard beetle gear and still have a lower ratio.

Portal chassis

Machines with portal - portal cranes and trolleys are compost turner.