Activity No.

Uses and Characteristics of Gears

Gears are used to transfer power or motion from one rotating shaft to another. Selection of appropriate
gears must be based in smooth slip-free uniform motion, high speed, light weight, precise timing, high
efficiency, and compact design. If the conditions were meet, the selected gear will be better than any
other alternatives.

In simple external drive, the direction of first member is opposite to the second member. In internal
drive, the direction of the first member is the same with the second member. The angular velocity for
external and internal drive is determined by the ratios of the radii of both drives. This means that the
timing of both drives is the same.

Types of Gears; Factors in Selection

In selecting of the best type of gearing for a design scenario, one must understand the geometric
arrangements, reduction ratio required, power to be transmitted, speed of rotation, efficiency, noise
level limitations, and cost constraints.

There are three arrangements to be considered when a designer is contemplating the transmission of
power or motion from one rotating shaft to another. The first one is when the shafts are parallel, next is
when the shaft axes intersect, and when the two shafts are neither parallel nor they intersect.

Spur gears are easy to design, manufacture, and check for precision. Spur gears can be used at speeds as
high as other types of gears, they are usually limited to pitch-line velocities around 20 m/s (4000 fpm) to
avoid high-frequency vibration and unacceptable noise levels.

Helical gears has their teeth angled with respect to the axis of rotation to form parallel helical spirals.
The helixes for the two mating external gears must be manufactured to have the same helix angle, but
for parallel shaft application the hand of the helix gears impose both radial and thrust (axial) loads on
supporting bearings. Also, because of the angled teeth, as the gears rotate each tooth pair comes into
engagement first at one end, with contact spreading gradually along a diagonal path across the tooth
face as rotation continues.

Straight bevel gears represent the simplest type of gearing used for intersecting shafts. Usually the shaft
axes intersect at an angle of 90° but almost any angle can be accommodated. The pitch surfaces for
straight bevel gears are tangent conical frustra, as compared to tangent cylindrical surfaces for straight
spur gears. Bevel gear teeth are tapered in both tooth thickness and height, from a larger tooth profile
at one end to a smaller tooth profile at the other end.

Spiral bevel gears are related to straight bevel gears in much the same way that helical gears are related
to straight tooth gears, thus providing the advantages of gradual engagement along the tooth face.
Because of the conical geometry, spiral bevel teeth do not have a true helical spiral, but have an
appearance similar to that of a helical gear.
Face gears which are functionally similar to bevel gears, have gear teeth cut on an annular ring at the
outer edge of a gear “face”. A face gear is matched with a spur pinion mounted on an intersecting shaft
(usually 90°). Face gear teeth change shape from one end to the other.

Cross-helical gears have their members have a cylindrical shape, as opposed to worm gearset, in which
one of both members are throated. The non-interseccting axes of crossed-helical gears often are 90° to
each other, but almost any angle can be accommodated. As the gears rotate, their meshing teeth first
meet only in a point contact which travels across the tooth face along a sloping line; hence basic load-
carrying capacity is small.

Worm gearsets are characterized by a worm with “teeth” similar to the threads of a power screw, in
mesh with a worm gear having teeth similar to those of a helical gear, except that they are contoured to
envelop the worm. Wormsets provide the easiest way to obtain large reduction ratios, but friction losses
can be high because the worm threads slide along the gear teeth.

Gear Trains; Reduction Ratios

A simple gear train is an arrangement in which each shaft carries only one simple gear. Gear 2 in the
simple gear serves the function of changing the direction of rotation of output gear 3 but does not
change the magnitude of angular velocity ratio between output gear 3 and input pinion 1. For this
reason, gear 2 is called an idler. There is usually little justification for more than three gears in a simple
train because no matter what their size, angular velocity ratios of additional idlers merely cancel each
other and no contribution is made to the overall train reduction ratio.

A compound gear train consists of two concentric gears are rigidly mounted on a common shaft so that
they are constrained to rotate together in the same direction with the same velocity. Any gear train
embodying at least one compound gear is called a compound gear train. There are two types of
compound gear train; reverted and nonreverted. Reverted compound gear train is where the input shaft
and the output shaft is colinear. Nonreverted compound gear train is where the input and output shafts
are not in colinear.

The train ratio is usually be less than 1 because most gear train are speed reducers. In some cases,
however, when the gear train is a speed increaser, the train ratio will be greater than 1. For simple and
compound gear trains, the axes of all gears are fixed with respect to the frame, so these train have one
degree of freedom. Degree of freedom are the number of independent parameters required to fully
specify the position of every link (gear) relative to the fixed frame.

An epicyclic (planetary) gear train is arranged so that one or more gears are carried on a rotating arm
(carrier), which itself rotates about a fixed center. Thus, the planet gear not only rotates about its own
center, but at the same time its center rotates about another center (that of the sun). In spite of the
complication, planetary gear trains often provide an attractive design option because higher train
reduction ratios may be obtained in smaller space envelopes, high efficiency is possible, shifting to
obtain larger or smaller speed reduction ratios is feasible by programmed control of two inputs, and a
reverted train is characteristic.