The pedrail wheel is a type of all-terrain wheel developed in the late 19th and early 20th century by Londoner

Bramah Joseph Diplock Bramah Joseph Diplock (27 April 1857 – 9 August 1918) was an English inventor who invented the pedrail wheel in 1899 and the pedrail chaintrack, a type of caterpillar track, in 1907. Diplock was born in Chelsea, London to Thomas Bramah Dipl ...

. It consists of a series of "feet" (''pedes'' in

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

) connected to pivots on a wheel. As the wheel travels, pressure exerted by springs within it increases the number of feet in contact with the ground, thus reducing ground pressure and allowing the wheel to negotiate obstacles and uneven ground.

Definition

According to the 1913

Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary ''Webster's Dictionary'' is any of the English language dictionaries edited in the early 19th century by American lexicographer Noah Webster (1758–1843), as well as numerous related or unrelated dictionaries that have adopted the Webster's ...

, a pedrail is:

Fiction

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G."
Revised 18 May 2015. ''

The Land Ironclads "The Land Ironclads" is a short story by British writer H. G. Wells, which originally appeared in the December 1903 issue of the '' Strand Magazine''. It features tank-like "land ironclads," armoured fighting vehicles that carry riflemen, engi ...

'', published in ''

The Strand Magazine ''The Strand Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the ...

'' in December 1903, described the use of large, armoured cross-country vehicles, armed with automatic rifles and moving on pedrail wheels, to break through a system of fortified trenches, disrupting the defence and clearing the way for an infantry advance: In ''War and the Future'', Wells acknowledged Diplock's pedrail as the origin for his idea of an all-terrain armoured vehicle: Although Wells describes the pedrail wheels in detail, a number of authors have mistakenly taken his description to be of some form of caterpillar track. Diplock's version of an endless track was not designed until some ten years after the publication of Wells' story. The pedrail wheel played no part in the design of the first British tanks.

Chaintrack

In 1910 Diplock abandoned the Pedrail Wheel and began developing what he called the Chaintrack, in which fixed wheels ran on a moving belt, very like the caterpillar track as it is now understood. It was a complicated and high-maintenance system, and in 1914 Diplock eventually produced a version on a simpler, single wide track.
Diplock's 1914 patent. With a body fitted, the machine could carry a ton of cargo and be pulled with minimal effort by a horse. It demonstrated the attributes of the caterpillar track: low friction and low ground pressure.

Bibliography

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References

{{Reflist Wheels English inventions British inventions