The 2nd Student Conference – Content and English Language Integrated Learning

CLIL 2017, Zenica, BiH, April 2017

MECHANICAL MEANS OF POWER TRANSMISSION

Vedad Peratović
Faculty of Mechanical engineering
Fakultetska 1
Zenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina

SUMMARY
Like it's said in the title, this paper is based on presenting and explaining some of most important means
of mechanical power transmission. Due to the extensiveness of the topic, only most used mechanical
elements for transmission of power will be discussed, and those are shafts and gears. We will focus on
their practical application with few real life examples, importance and some basic principles of those
mechanical elements.
Key words: Power transmission, shafts, gears, gearbox, mechanical elements.

SAŽETAK
Kao što je rečeno u naslovu, ovaj rad se bazira na prezentiranju i pojašnjenju najvažnijih mehaničkih
prenosnika snage. Zbog opsežnosti teme, bit će razmatrani samo najčešće korišteni mašinski elementi
za prenos snage, a u tu kategoriju spadaju vratila i zupčanici. Fokusirat ćemo se na njihovu praktičnu
primjenu kroz par primjera iz svakodnevnog života, značaja i osnovnih principa ovih mašinskih
elemenata.
Ključne riječi: Prijenos snage, vratila, zupčanici, reduktor brzine, mašinski elementi.

1. INTRODUCTION
Power transmission can be defined as transfer of energy from the place where it is produced to a place
where it can be used. Usually the term transmission simply refers to mechanical system called speed
reducer or gearbox, that uses gears to provide speed and torque conversions from a rotating power source
to another device, like we have in cars, where input power from internal combustion engines is supplied
into the gearbox where speed of rotating elements is reduced, torque increased, and like that transferred
to the road wheels. That would be basic purpose of gears.
Such engines need to operate at a relatively high rotational speed, which is inappropriate for starting,
stopping, and slower travel [2]. Transmissions are also used on bicycles, business machines, and where
different rotational speeds and torques are necessary.
Electrical motors have a limited amount of power that they can output, which means that for a specific
amount of work (for example lifting a weight over a set distance), the motor can only do it so fast. To
ensure the motor will spin at a reasonable speed and draw a reasonable amount of current, the motor
load must be below a certain point. The motors in their default configuration are too fast for a typical
applied load – they are trying to accomplish the work faster than their power limit will allow. So if the
motor must lift a certain weight while still staying under the design threshold, mechanical advantage
must be used [1]. Mechanical advantage represents the ratio of output speed to the input speed, or output
force to the input force applied to a mechanism.
Usually speed reducer, also called gearbox has multiple gear ratios (gears), which means that one
gearbox can provide different outputs from a single input, depending on which gears are in a coupling.
This switching between different gears may be done manually or automatically. Single-ratio

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The 2nd Student Conference – Content and English Language Integrated Learning

CLIL 2017, Zenica, BiH, April 2017

transmission also exists, which simply changes the speed and torque (and sometimes direction) of motor
output.
In motor vehicles, the transmission generally is connected to the engine crankshaft via a flywheel and/or
clutch and/or fluid coupling, partly because internal combustion engines cannot run below a particular
speed. Clutch is used to connect or disconnect power from the road wheels when needed, and flywheels
are used to store potential energy. The output of the transmission is transmitted via the driveshaft to one
or more differentials, which drives the wheels [2]. Differential may also provide gear reduction as
regular gears, but its primary purpose is to allow the wheels at either end of an axle to rotate at different
speeds which is crucial to avoid wheel slippage on turns, as inner and outer wheels do not rotate at the
same speed while car is driving in a curve.

2. SHAFTS AND GEARS

Mechanical power can be transmitted across large distances in a variety of ways. Shafts are rotating
machine elements that look like a bar, or a rod, and they transfer motion from point to point along their
axis of motion. A common example of this is the drive axle of a car. Power is transferred into shafts via
keys, splines, or polygonal shafts like it is shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Types of shafts [1]

Gears are another method of mechanical power transmission. There are many different types of gears,
and they are found in pretty much every electrical machine, some household appliances, cars, toys,
robots, etc.

2.1. Spur gears

The most common type of gear is called spur gear, like shown in Figure 2. Spur gears are basically
wheels of various diameters with teeth. Spur gears transfer motion between two shafts which are parallel
to each other. They are calculated and machined in a way that two gears can mesh together, and like that
they are able to drive each other.

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CLIL 2017, Zenica, BiH, April 2017

Figure 2. Spur gears [3]

Spur gears are characterized by their teeth, which are straight and parallel to the gear’s axis of
rotation. These are the primary form of mechanical power transfer used in the many machines, toys,
robotics design system. In addition, spur gears are found in the real world in everything from
automobiles to the mechanism that opens the tray on a DVD player. [1]

2.2. Bevel gears

Bevel gears transmit power between shafts that have intersecting axes of motion. They are conically
shaped, and are very useful when it's necessary to change direction of power transmission.

Figure 3. Bevel gears [3]

Bevel gears can transmit power between shafts at a variety of angles, but are most commonly used to
transmit power 90-degrees as seen in the figure above.

2.3. Worm gears

Worm gears come in pairs, consisting of worm gears and worm wheels. Worm gear resembles screw,
and worm wheels are just like regular gears that are manufactured in a way that they are able to mesh
with worm gear.
This type of gear pair is very useful for creating a high mechanical advantage in small space, because
only one gear couple (worm gears and worm wheel) can output reduction usually as much as 50 up to
60 times.
These gears are useful for applications where mechanism needs to be driven in just one direction, as it
is difficult for worm wheel to drive the worm gear, so they are used in a way that worm gear drives
worm wheel.

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CLIL 2017, Zenica, BiH, April 2017

Figure 4. Worm gear [3]

2.4. Epicyclic (planetary) gears

An epicyclic or planetary gear set consists of one or more planet gears moving along an outer ring gear
as a central sun gear drives them. As the planet gears are driven, they typically move a planet carrier
plate along with them. [1]

Figure 5. Planetary gear [3]

Interestingly, planetary gears can be used in a variety of ways with different gears serving as the inputs
and outputs. For example, one might use the sun gear as the input and the planet carrier as the output
while the ring gear is held stationary, or one might use the ring gear as the input and the sun gear as the
output while the planet carrier is held stationary. The overall mechanical advantage of a planetary gear
set changes depending on the configuration used. [1]

2.5. Rack gears

A rack gear is basically straight rod with teeth, that moves in a linear fashion when driven by a spur gear
(also known as the pinion gear).
Rack and pinion gear sets are commonly used to convert rotational motion to linear motion. One
example of usage of this gear set is in sliding door mechanism, where rotational motion from the electric
motor is transferred via pinion gear to the rack gear which is connected to the doors, and like that, rack
gear and door are moving linearly.

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CLIL 2017, Zenica, BiH, April 2017

Figure 6. Rack gears [3]

There are many more applications where rack gears can be used to create linear actuators for driving
mechanisms like DVD rom doors, CNC machines, 3D printers etc. Commented [V1]: Ispravno je DVD rom doors, pa je ispravka
„room“ izbrisana

3. BASICS ABOUT GEARS MATING

In order for two gears to mesh, they need to have teeth with same shape and size on equal spacing. For
gear of the same pitch, tooth count and diameter are directly proportional. More teeth = bigger
diameter.

3.1. Gear ratios

Gears are not just used to transfer power; they also provide an opportunity to adjust the mechanical
advantage of a mechanism. As discussed in the introduction to this unit, there are cases where a motor
itself is powerful enough for an application but the motor’s output characteristics are not well suited to
the application. A motor that is very fast but has only a little bit of torque would not be suitable to lift a
heavy load; in these cases it is necessary to use gear ratios to change the outputs to a more appropriate
balance of torque and speed [1].
A man riding a bicycle has a limited power which needs to be well used. That can be achieved by the
man manually, adjusting proper gears to be coupled and in that manner getting right mechanical
advantage.

Figure 7. Gears application on bicycle [1]

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The 2nd Student Conference – Content and English Language Integrated Learning

CLIL 2017, Zenica, BiH, April 2017

In next example, we can see that if the input side of the lever moves 1 meter then the output moves 4
meters. This difference is proportional to the ratio between the lengths of the levers. Thus, output length
/ input length = 8 / 2 = 4. [1]
The interesting thing about this is that it moves these distances at the same time. Let’s say that it takes
one second to move the input one meter, and the input is moving at one meter per second. At the same
time, the output moves four meters in one second, and is moving at a speed of four meters per second.
The output is moving faster than the input, by the ratio of the lever lengths. [1]

Figure 8. Levers [1]

A spur gear represents one type of lever where the diameter of a gear is also the length of a lever. Small
gears driving large gears result in a torque increase. Large gears driving small gears result in a torque
decrease.
As discussed previously, the number of teeth a gear has is proportional to its diameter, so instead of
using diameters to calculate gear reduction, we can just use number of teeth.

4. MOTION REVERSAL AND IDLER GEAR

One more thing that we need to be aware of is that the driving and the driven gear have the opposite
direction of rotation as it can be clearly seen in figure 9. Sometimes, when we need to keep the same
direction of rotation, we have to add one more gear which is called idler gear, as shown in figure 10.

Figure 9. Coupling gear [1]

The idler gear has no effect on the overall reduction. The only gears that matter to reduction in a system
like this are the first gear and the last gear.

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CLIL 2017, Zenica, BiH, April 2017

Figure 10. Application of idler gear [1]

5. CONCLUSION
Gears and shafts represent very important mechanical elements. It could be said that they are as much
important as discovery of engines and electric motors as they ensure practical application of power
generated in engines and motors. They seem to be very basic way of transmitting and using power, but
at the same time they are very smart and practical invention, as we saw in bicycle example, where we
can use mechanical advantage to increase our speed reducing torque and vice versa, depending on what
we need in exact moment.

6. REFERENCES
[1] http://curriculum.vexrobotics.com/curriculum/mechanical-power-transmission ( Available on 07.04.2017)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmission_(mechanics) ( Available on 07.04.2017)
[3] Google Images