374 Mechanical Engineer’s Pocket Book

(a) Driver and driven pulley wheels rotate in opposite directions.

(b) Crossed-belt drives can only be used with flat section belts (long centre distances) or
circular section belts (short centre distances).
(c) The relative speed of the pulley wheels is again calculated by the expression:

rev/min driver diameter DN of driven

rev/min driven diameter DR of driver

Example
The driver pulley rotates at 500 rev/min and is 600 mm in diameter. Calculate the diam-
eter of the driven pulley if it is to rotate at 250 rev/min.

500 rev/min diameter DN

250 rev/min 600 mm

500  600
diameter DN

1200 mm
250

5.2.2 Compound flat-belt drives

DN
DR D2

D1

Intermediate
driven pulley

Driver pulley
Layshaft Intermediate Driven pulley
driver pulley

(1) To identify the direction of rotation, the rules for open and crossed-belt drives apply
(Section 5.2.1).
(2) The relative speeds of the pulley wheels are calculated by the expression:

rev/min driver diameter D1 diameter DN


rev/min driven diameter DR diameter D2

Example
Calculate the speed in rev/min of the driven pulley if the driver rotates at 600 rev/min. The
diameters of the pulley wheels are: DR
250 mm, D1
750 mm, D2
500 mm,
DN
1000 mm.