1. A fender assembly for a vehicle comprising a longitudinal frame and carrying ground-engaging wheels supporting the frame above a road surface and positioned laterally of the frame, the fender assembly comprising:
a fender of a relatively linear cross dimension adapted to overlie at least one of the wheels and having an upper surface and a lower surface;
an elongated support arm mounted to either of the upper or lower surfaces of the fender and having a longitudinal axis;
a bracket assembly mounted to the support arm and having a connector for mounting the bracket assembly to the vehicle frame for rotation about an axis of rotation substantially parallel to and spaced from the longitudinal axis of the elongated support arm to define an offset distance therebetween; and
the bracket assembly further including a length-adjustable link to selectively adjust the offset distance between the longitudinal axis of the elongated support arm and the axis of rotation of the bracket assembly.
2. The fender assembly according to claim 1 wherein the length-adjustable link comprises a first bracket mounted to the support arm, a second bracket coupled to the connector, and the first and second brackets are coupled together for relative vertical movement therebetween.
3. The fender assembly according to claim 2 and further comprising a releasable fastener extending through the first and second brackets such that when the releasable fastener is in an unreleased condition, the relative position of the first and second brackets is fixed, and when the releasable fastener is in a released condition, the first and second brackets are adjustable relative to each other.
4. The fender assembly according to claim 3 wherein the releasable fastener comprises a bolt extending through aligned first and second openings in the first and second brackets, respectively, and a nut threadably mounted on the bolt, wherein the bolt is tightened to place the fastener in the unreleased condition, and the bolt is loosened to place the fastener in the released condition.
5. The fender assembly according to claim 4 wherein the nut comprises a base that abuts the first bracket when the fastener is in the unreleased condition.
6. The fender assembly according to claim 5 wherein the first bracket comprises flanges defining a channel therebetween and the base width is substantially equal to the channel width.
7. The fender assembly according to claim 6 wherein the base has linear edges that interface with the channel flanges to restrain relative rotation of the nut with respect to the first bracket.
8. The fender assembly according to claim 7 wherein the area of the base abutting the first bracket is at least twice as great as the cross-sectional area of the bolt.
9. The fender assembly according to claim 7 wherein the base is rectangular.
10. The fender assembly according to claim 9 wherein the nut further comprises a collar extending from the base and defining a threaded opening within the collar.
11. The fender assembly according to claim 10 wherein the nut further comprises gussets extending between the collar and the base.
12. The fender assembly according to claim 4 wherein at least one of the aligned first and second openings is a slot.
13. The fender assembly according to claim 12 wherein both aligned first and second openings are slots.
14. The fender assembly according to claim 4 wherein the first and second brackets each have a face with a serration and the serrations mesh when the fastener is in the unreleased position.
15. The fender assembly according to claim 14 wherein a pair of spaced, parallel serrations is provided on both faces.
16. The fender assembly according to claim 15 wherein the first and second openings lie between the parallel serrations.
17. The fender assembly according to claim 16 wherein the second bracket further comprises a platform that acts as a support when in the unreleased position.
18. The fender assembly according to claim 4 wherein the second bracket comprises a substantially flat plate having opposing faces through which the second opening passes.
19. The fender assembly according to claim 18 wherein one of the faces of the flat plate is adapted to abut the vehicle frame and the fastener extends through the frame and the aligned first and second openings of the first and second brackets wherein the release of the fastener permits the rotation of at least the first bracket relative to the vehicle frame.
20. The fender assembly according to claim 4 and further comprising a second fastener and the second bracket has a third opening that receives the second fastener, wherein the second fastener is adapted to pass through the vehicle frame and into the third opening to form the rotatable mount.
21. The fender assembly according to claim 20 wherein the second bracket comprises a collar in which is formed the third opening and an end plate connected to the collar and in which is formed the second opening.
22. The fender assembly according to claim 21 wherein the second bracket further comprises a gusset connecting the end plate to the collar.
23. The fender assembly according to claim 22 wherein the end plate is spaced from the collar.
24. The fender assembly according to claim 4 wherein the first bracket comprises a releasable mount for rotatably mounting the elongated support arm thereto.
25. The fender assembly according to claim 24 wherein the releasable mount is a ring clamp defining an arm opening in which the arm is received.
26. The fender assembly according to claim 25 wherein the ring clamp arm opening and the arm have complementary circular cross sections such that the arm can be rotated within the arm opening when the ring clamp is unclamped and is rotationally fixed when the ring clamp is clamped.
27. The fender assembly according to claim 24 wherein the first bracket further comprises an end plate connected to the rotatable mount and in which is formed the first opening.
28. The fender assembly according to claim 27 wherein the first bracket further comprises a pair of spaced gussets connecting the end plate and the rotatable mount and defining a channel therebetween in which the nut is received.
29. The fender assembly according to claim 1 and further comprising at least one vibration-decoupling connector connecting the support arm to the fender.
30. A fender mounting bracket for a vehicle comprising a longitudinal frame that carries ground engaging wheels above which is supported a fender, the fender mounting assembly comprising:
an elongated support arm adapted to be mounted to either of an upper or lower surface of the fender and defining a longitudinal axis;
a length-adjustable link connection having a first portion connected to the elongated support arm and a second portion adapted to be rotatably mounted to a vehicle frame at a rotational axis spaced from the longitudinal axis of the elongated arm, wherein the offset spacing between the arm longitudinal axis and the rotational axis can be changed by adjusting the length of the link;
wherein the first portion comprises a first bracket mounted to the support arm and the second portion comprises a second bracket mounted to the first bracket for relative movement therebetween;
a releasable fastener extending through first and second openings in the first and second brackets, respectively, such that when the releasable fastener is in an unreleased condition, the relative position of the first and second brackets is fixed, and when the releasable fastener is in a released condition, the first and second brackets are selectively adjustable relative to each other;
wherein the first and second brackets each have a face with a serration and the serrations mesh when the fastener is in the unreleased position;
wherein a pair of spaced, parallel serrations is provided on both faces;
wherein the first and second openings lie between the parallel serrations;
wherein the second bracket comprises a collar in which is formed the third opening and an end plate is connected to the collar, and one side of the end plate forms the corresponding face on which the corresponding serrations are located;
wherein the second bracket further comprises a gusset connecting the end plate to the collar; and
wherein the end plate is spaced from the collar.
31. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 30 wherein the first bracket comprises a releasable mount for rotatably mounting the arm thereto.
32. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 31 wherein the releasable mount is a ring clamp defining an arm opening in which the arm is received.
33. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 32 wherein the ring clamp arm opening and the arm have complementary circular cross sections such that the arm can be rotated within the opening when the ring clamp is unclamped and is rotationally fixed when the ring clamp is clamped.
34. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 31 wherein the first bracket further comprises an end plate connected to the rotatable mount and one side of which forms the corresponding face on which the serrations are located and in which is formed the first opening.
35. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 34 wherein the releasable fastener comprises a bolt extending through aligned first and second openings in the first and second brackets, respectively, and a nut threadably mounted on the bolt, wherein the bolt is tightened to place the fastener in the unreleased condition, and the bolt is loosened to place the fastener in the released condition.
36. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 35 wherein the first bracket further comprises a pair of spaced gussets connecting the end plate and the rotatable mount and defining a channel therebetween in which the nut is received.
37. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 36 wherein the nut comprises a base that abuts the first bracket when the fastener is in the unreleased condition.
38. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 37 wherein the base has linear edges that interface with the spaced gussets to restrain rotational motion of the nut with respect to the first bracket.
39. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 38 wherein a width of the base abutting the first bracket is at least twice as great as a cross-sectional area of the bolt.
40. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 39 wherein the base is of a width substantially equal to the width of the channel.
41. The fender mounting bracket according to claim 40 wherein the base is rectangular.
The claims below are in addition to those above.
All refrences to claim(s) which appear below refer to the numbering after this setence.
We claim:
1. A network system, comprising:
a virtual graph that includes a plurality of service modules, a first service module modeled to represent a network element, the first service module to initiate one or more primitive operations to be performed on a packet in order to process the packet;
a first packet processing path limited in its decision making capacity by the amount of primitive operations in an instruction set;
a second packet-processing path that processes packets that are an exception to the primitive operations in the instruction set; and
a stateful decision logic to determine if the packet to be processed is eligible be processed by the first packet processing path or required to processed by another packet processing path.
2. The network system of claim 1, further comprising:
an optimization component to optimize an amount of primitive operations performed on the packet by removing redundant primitive operations and other primitive operations that are made obsolete by performing a subsequent primitive operation.
3. The network system of claim 1, wherein each service module that the packet progresses through in the virtual graph initiates one or more primitive operations to be performed on the packet.
4. The network system of claim 2, wherein the optimization component to optimize a total set of the primitive operations contributed by all of the service modules that the packet progresses through.
5. The network system of claim 2, wherein the optimization component resides in operating system software
6. The network system of claim 2, wherein the optimization component implements in firmware.
7. The network system of claim 2, wherein the optimization component is a hardware block of logic.
8. The network system of claim 2, wherein the optimization component applies a set of rules to the total set of the primitive operations in order to optimize that set of the primitive operations.
9. The network system of claim 1, wherein the stateful decision logic to determine if the packet to be processed is eligible be processed by the first packet processing path by determining if the packet belong a particular flow of packets previously identified by the stateful decision logic.
10. The network system of claim 1, wherein the first packet-processing path further comprises dedicated logic to perform packet-processing operations with the limited instruction set.
11. The network of claim 1, wherein the same first packet-processing path to execute a total set of primitive operations on the packet, the total set of primitive operations coming from all of the service modules in an individual network.
12. The network system of claim 1, wherein the second packet processing path further comprises a general purpose processor cooperating with software.
13. The network system of claim 1, further comprising:
a component to execute a common set of primitive operations to every packet prior to the first packet processing path or second packet processing path processing the packet.
14. A network system, comprising:
a first individual network; and
two or more service modules included in a topology of the first individual network, a first service module modeled to represent a network element that performs one or more functions to process a packet in a network system, the two or more service modules arrangeable in the first individual network in an arbitrary topology, packet processing by the two or more service modules is governed by the topology of the first individual network.
15. The network system of claim 14, wherein each service module that a packet progresses through initiates one or more primitive operations to be performed on the packet.
16. The network system of claim 14, wherein a total set of the primitive operations contributed by all of the service modules that the packet progresses through may be optimized to remove redundant primitive operations and other primitive operations that are made obsolete by performing a subsequent primitive operation.
17. The network system of claim 14, wherein the all of the service modules that the packet progresses through forms a chain of network elements and a second network element later in sequential order in the chain of network elements can make a determination to send a packet to be processed by a packet processing component prior to a first network element earlier in sequential order in the chain of network elements makes the determination to send the packet to a particular processing component.
18. The network system of claim 14, wherein a second network element makes a determination to send a packet to be processed by a packet processing component at a different point in time than a first network element.
19. The network system of claim 14, further comprising:
a storage unit to store a total set of the primitive operations contributed by all of the service modules, wherein the total set of the primitive operations is optimized each time a particular network element adds its set of primitive operations for the packet to be processed by a packet processing component to the total set of the primitive operations contributed by all of the service modules.
20. The network system of claim 14, wherein first individual network has dedicated hardware resources including processing power and memory.
21. A computer readable medium containing an instructional sequence to perform processing of a packet, comprising:
a first set of primitive operations to be applied to the packet to process the packet through a network system, the first set of primitive operations initiated by a first service module modeled to represent a first network element that performs one or more functions to process a packet in a network system;
a second set of primitive operations to be applied to the packet to process the packet through the network system, the second set of primitive operations initiated by a second service module modeled to represent a second network element different in type of network element than the first network element modeled by the first service module, the first set of primitive operations and the second set of primitive operations to be combined into a single set of primitive operations to be processed by a network system employing fast packet processing path architecture.
22. The article of manufacture of claim 21, wherein the single set of primitive operations is optimized by removing redundant primitive operations and other primitive operations that are made obsolete by performing a subsequent primitive operation.
23. The article of manufacture of claim 21, wherein the single set of primitive operations is to be processed by either a first packet processing path limited in its decision making capacity by the amount of primitive operations in an instruction set or a second packet-processing path that processes packets that are an exception to the primitive operations in the instruction set.
24. The article of manufacture of claim 23, wherein the single set of primitive operations contains a conditional primitive operation to force the packet in a flow to from the second packet-processing path to another packet-processing path.
25. The article of manufacture of claim 23, wherein the single set of primitive operations contains a conditional primitive operation to force the packet in a flow from the first packet-processing path to another packet-processing path.
26. The article of manufacture of claim 21, wherein the single set of primitive operations contains a primitive operation to duplicate a packet to create a first packet and a second packet.
27. The article of manufacture of claim 26, wherein the first packet to route to a first destination address and the second packet to route to a second destination address.
28. The article of manufacture of claim 26, wherein the first packet to route to a first packet processing component and the second packet to route to a second packet processing component.
29. The network system of claim 1, further comprising:
a component to execute a common set of primitive operations to every packet after the first packet processing path or second packet processing path processes the packet.
30. The network system of claim 14, further comprising:
a first packet processing component based in hardware;
a second packet processing component based in software, wherein the first packet processing component performs one or more primitive operations upon the packet until the first service module initiates a primitive operation and then the second packet processing component performs one or more primitive operations upon the packet.
31. The network system of claim 15, further comprising:
an optimization component to optimize the one or more primitive operations initiated by each service module by removing redundant primitive operations and other primitive operations that are made obsolete by performing a subsequent primitive operation.
32. The network system of claim 31, wherein the optimization component to optimize a set of primitive operations to be performed on the packet without causing the packet processing of that packet to be reset.