Abstract: A pressure regulating valve is disclosed as including a valve seat having a flat working surface and a central inlet bore extending perpendicularly from the flat working surface through the seat. A valve disc having a flat circular working surface, the diameter of which is at least three times as large as the diameter of the inlet bore, is positioned against the seat in a coaxial relationship with the inlet bore to provide a large annular area of contact with the flat seat surface. The disc is biased toward the seat by an assembly including a spring within a spring housing, a piston, reciprocally engaged in the innermost end of the spring housing, and a ball bearing received in opposed recesses in the seat and disc. When subjected to high pressure bypass flow through the valve seat inlet bore, the disc is forced from the seat and attains a stable, parallel orientation relative to the seat under the influence of the bypass flow.

Abstract: A heliostat apparatus includes a frame which is rotatable about an axis which is parallel to the aperture plane of an elongate receiver. A plurality of flat flexible mirror elements are mounted to the frame between several parallel, uniformly spaced resilient beams which are pivotally connected at their ends to the frame. Channels are mounted to the sides of the beams for supporting the edges of the mirror elements. Each of the beams has a longitudinally varying configuration designed to bow into predetermined, generally circular curvatures of varying radii when the center of the beam is deflected relative to the pivotally connected ends of the beams. All of the parallel resilient beams are simultaneously deflected by a cam shaft assembly extending through openings in the centers of the beams, whereby the mirror elements together form an upwardly concave, cylindrical reflecting surface.

Abstract: An electro-optical apparatus for determining, during caster angle measurement procedures, when the front wheels of a vehicle have been turned into a first desired steering position oriented in one rotative direction from a "straight-ahead" position and have thereafter been turned to a second desired steering position oriented in the opposite rotative direction from the "straight-ahead" position. A multiple light beam projector and a photosensitive detector are mounted to a front wheel of the vehicle for rotation therewith, and a reflector is mounted to the rear wheel of the vehicle which is on the same side of the vehicle as the projector and detector. The projector rearwardly projects three directional beam patterns with each pattern consisting of sequentially emitted discrete beams which are projected at unique angles with respect to the plane of the front wheel.

Abstract: A wheel balancing apparatus for balancing an out-of-balance wheel that is mounted on a rotatable shaft includes force transducers positioned in a horizontal plane against resiliently supported bearings for the shaft to thereby detect horizontal components of the imbalance forces created by the out-of-balance wheel. Photosensitive switches associated with the shaft produce phase-displaced analog signals, which signals are supplied to a pulse producing circuit for generating a train of count pulses on one of two output lines depending upon the direction of rotation of the shaft. A counter, which has a capacity exactly equal to the number of pulses generated by the pulse producing circuit per revolution of the shaft, is set when the horizontal component of the imbalance force for a particular correction plane associated with the counter equals zero.