GEARS

GEAR
 Power transmission is the movement of energy from its place of generation
to a location where it is applied to perform useful work

 A gear is a component within a transmission device that transmits

rotational force to another gear or device.
WHY GEARS ARE USED?
 To transmit torque / power from one shaft to another shaft.
Other commonly used power transmitting elements:
 Belt drive
major limitation: Slippage
 Rope drive
 Chain drive major limitation: Discontinuous drive
To avoid slippage and discontinuity during power transmission, the best
solution is gear drive.
 To get desired rotational speed
 To change direction of rotation
 Where distance between drive shaft and driven shaft is very small
PRIMITIVE GEARS
 GEAR MATERIAL
 The materials used for the manufacture of gears depends upon the strength and
service conditions like wear, noise etc.
 The gears may be manufactured from metallic or non-metallic materials. The
metallic gears with cut teeth are commercially obtainable in cast iron, steel and
bronze.
 The non-metallic materials like wood, rawhide, compressed paper and synthetic
resins like nylon are used for gears, especially for reducing noise.
 The cast iron is widely used for the manufacture of gears due to its good wearing
properties, excellent machinability and ease of producing complicated shapes by
casting method. The cast iron gears with cut teeth may be employed, where smooth
action is not important.
 The steel is used for high strength gears and steel may be plain carbon steel or alloy
steel. The steel gears are usually heat treated in order to combine properly the
toughness and tooth hardness.
 The phosphor bronze is widely used for worms gears in order to reduce wear of the
worms which will be excessive with cast iron or steel.
 TYPES OF GEARS

1. According to the position of axes of theshafts.

a. Parallel
1.Spur Gear
2.Helical Gear
3.Rack and Pinion
b. Intersecting
Bevel Gear
c. Non-intersecting and Non-parallel
worm and worm gears
Spur Gear
 Teeth is parallel to axis of rotation
 Transmit power from one shaft to another
parallel shaft
 Used in Electric screwdriver, oscillating sprinkler,
windup alarm clock, washing machine and
clothes dryer
 Spur Gear
 Advantages
 They offer constant velocity ratio
 Spur gears are highly reliable
 Spur gears are simplest, hence easiest to design and manufacture
 A spur gear is more efficient if you compare it with helical gear of same size
 Spur gear teeth are parallel to its axis. Hence, spur gear train does not produce axial thrust. So
the gear shaft can be mounted easily using ball bearings.
 They can be used to transmit large amount of power (of the order of 50,000 kW)

 Disadvantages
 Spur gear are slow-speed gears
 Gear teeth experience a large amount of stress
 They cannot transfer power between non-parallel shafts
 They cannot be used for long distance power transmission.
 Spur gears produce a lot of noise when operating at high speeds.
 when compared with other types of gears, they are not as strong as them
 Helical Gear
 The teeth on helical gears are cut at an angle to the face of the gear
 This gradual engagement makes helical gears operate much more smoothly and
quietly than spur gears
 One interesting thing about helical gears is that if the angles of the gear teeth are correct,
they can be mounted on perpendicular shafts, adjusting the rotation angle by 90 degrees
 Helical Gear
 Advantages
 The angled teeth engage more gradually than do spur gear teeth causing them to run more
smoothly and quietly
 Helical gears are highly durable and are ideal for high load applications.
 At any given time their load is distributed over several teeth, resulting in less wear
 Can transmit motion and power between either parallel or right angle shafts

 Disadvantages
 An obvious disadvantage of the helical gears is a resultant thrust along the axis of the gear, which
needs to be accommodated by appropriate thrust bearings, and a greater degree of sliding friction
between the meshing teeth, often addressed with additives in the lubricant.
 Thus we can say that helical gears cause losses due to the unique geometry along the axis of the
helical gear’s shaft.
 Efficiency of helical gear is less because helical gear trains have sliding contacts between the
teeth which in turns produce axial thrust of gear shafts and generate more heat. So, more power
loss and less efficiency
Herringbone Gears (Double helical)

 To avoid axial thrust, two helical gears of

opposite hand can be mounted side by side,
to cancel resulting thrust forces

 Herringbone gears are mostly used on

heavy machinery.
 Rack And Pinion

 Rack and pinion gears are used to convert rotation (From the pinion) into linear motion (of
the rack). Here rack can be thought of as a sector gear with an infinitely large radius of
curvature.
 A perfect example of this is the steering system on many cars.
 Rack And Pinion
 Advantages  Disadvantages
 Due to the apparent friction, a lot of the force applied to the
 Cheap mechanism is burned up in overcoming friction, to be more
 Compact precise somewhat around 80% of the overall force is
burned to overcome one.
 Robust (Strong)
 The rack and pinion can only work with certain levels of
 Easiest way to convert rotation friction. Too high a friction and the mechanism will be
motion into linear motion subject to wear more than usual and will require more
 Rack and pinion gives easier and force to operate.
more compact control over the  The most adverse disadvantage of rack and pinion would
vehicle also be due to the inherent friction, the same force that
actually makes things work in the mechanism. Due to the
friction, it is under a constant wear, possibly needing
replacement after a certain time
 Bevel Gears
 Bevel gears are useful when the direction of a shaft's rotation needs to be changed
 They are usually mounted on shafts that are 90 degrees apart, but can be designed to work at
other angles as well
 The teeth on bevel gears can be straight or spiral
 locomotives, marine applications, automobiles, printing presses, cooling towers, power
plants, steel plants, railway track inspection machines, etc.
 Bevel Gears
 Advantages
 Operating angle could be changed and this characteristic of bevel gear makes it more flexible in
operation
 Bevel gears could also be made by nylon or plastic and such bevel gears made of plastics are
generally used in electric toy industries.
 Bevel gear efficiency is quite enough; bevel gear may provide efficiency up to 90 % and also more
than 90 % in few cases.
 Manufacturing costing will be less
 Sliding friction will also be lower in bevel gearing mechanism

 Disadvantages
 Bevel gears should be assembled with respective shaft precisely
 Bevel gears are not desirable for high speed reduction; such gears could be used maximum speed
reduction up to 5:1
 At high speed, such gearing mechanism will produce noise
Straight and Spiral Bevel Gears
 Worm and Worm Gear
 Worm gears are used when large gear reductions are needed. It is common for worm
gears to have reductions of 20:1, and even up to 300:1 or greater
 Many worm gears have an interesting property that no other gear set has: theworm
can easily turn the gear, but the gear cannot turn theworm
 Worm gears are used widely in material handling and transportation machinery, machine
tools, automobiles etc
 Worm & Worm Gear
 Advantages
 Higher speed reduction could be secured; speed reduction could be secured up to 300: 1
 Worm and worm gears operate silently
Worm and worm gears will have one characteristics i.e. self locking. Reverse movement will be restricted but
this characteristic depends on lead angle and friction angle.
 Worm and worm gear unit will be preferred to use if space is restricted as we have already discussed that
worm and worm gear unit could be used for heavy speed reduction in compact space also.
 Handsome output torque will be secured here with the application of worm and worm gear.

 Disadvantages
 Manufacturing cost is heavy as compared with manufacturing cost of bevel gear
 Cost of raw material to manufacture the worm and worm gear set will be quite high
 Worm and worm gear set will have heavy power losses.
 Efficiency will be low
 If speed reduction ratio is large, worm teeth sliding action will create lots of heat
Lubrication scheduled must be strictly maintained for healthiness of worm and worm gear as this unit
requires much lubrication for smooth working of gearbox.