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Typical industrial multi stage gear box with large shaft diameters and broad
face widths. For gear reduction of 1:6 or more the gear box will be lighter and
usually cheaper if it incorporates 2 or more stages.
A computer controlled
digitizing machine, measuring
the surface of a helical gear.
CCD machines can have
programs which guide the
sensor tip around any profile,
or just move until the sensor
touched something.
These machines though quite
dear are the only practical
means of determining the
accuracy of a tooth profile
A coal pulveriser as used in modern coal fired power station. A very high
final gear ratio is used here because of the convenience of being able to
use the pulveriser drum as the final gear stage
The pulveriser drive includes a traditional gear box just after the drive motor.
Another example of a supposedly rare high ratio gear pair. Here used to drive
a deep cable drum on an off-shore oil rig service vessel. The power comes
from a hydraulic low speed high torque motor, seen at left.
A herringbone gear set driving the propeller on a naval vessel. Note the
difference in teeth sizes to the previous gears, indicating quieter more
efficient operation, but certainly not cheaper construction.
It is possible to have too few a number of teeth on a gear. For any particular pressure
angle, If teeth number become too small, when the teeth are cut there will
discontinuities in the generation of the involute profile, either done by a rack or hob.
In the last few decades cycloidal teeth have almost fallen out of use, possibly
because of the difficulty in generating them. Today with accurate NC machine they
may return, because they allow the use of very few teeth, that is strong teeth and
high gear ratios in single gear pair. Note that Rootes blowers and screw
compressors using 2, 3 or 4 teeth are cycloidal in profile. Cycloids are also used in
mechanical clocks.