Appeal No. 2001-2378
Application No. 09/479,932
permissible stress level fastened to the securing device, and
an intermediate layer 38 mounted between the securing device
and the sleeper. The thrust of appellants’ invention is to
match the rigidity of the intermediate layer to the maximum
permissible bending stress of the rail in order to reduce
structure-borne sound while preventing said maximum
permissible bending stress from being exceeded. As explained
in the paragraph spanning pages 9 and 10 of the specification,
in accordance with the invention . . . it is
provided that the intermediate layer 36, 38, 40 has
in respect of its spring properties or rigidity a
so-called kinked characteristic. The intermediate [2]
layer 36, 38, 40 therefore has elastic or “soft”
properties as long as the maximum permissible or
presettable rail stress has not yet been reached.
If this rail stress does prevail, the intermediate
layer 36, 38, 40 is “hard”, i.e.[,] has a high
rigidity, so that there is no further bending of the
rail 18, 20, 26 and hence no increase in the rail
stress.
The claims set forth the relationship between the
rigidity
of the intermediate layer and the maximum permissible stress
of
the rail in various ways. For example, independent claim 1
2This characteristic is explained on page 8 of the
specification and illustrated in the graph of Figure 6.
3
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