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AUTOMOBILE ENGINEERING
MEC 883
TOPIC
CONSTRUCTION AND WORKING OF
DIFFERENTIAL
SUBMITTED BY
GAURAV SHARMA
ROE133
A39
SUBMITTED TO:-
Mr. JASDEEP SINGH
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
As usual large number of people deserves my thanks for the help they
provided me for the preparation for this term paper.
First of all i would like to thanks my teacher Mr. JASSDEEP SINGH
for his support during the preparation of this topic. I am very thankful
for his guidance.
I would also like to thanks my friends for the encouragement and
information about the topic they provided to me during to me during my
effort to prepare this topic.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
HISTORY
PURPOSE
DIFFERENTIAL TYPES
CONSTRUCTION
WORKING
FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION
IMPORTANT ASPECT LOSS OF
TRACTION
TRACTION AIDING DEVICES
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
INTRODUCTION
DIFFERENTIAL
HISTORY
There are many claims to the invention of the differential gear but it is
likely that it was known, at least in some places, in ancient times. Some
historical milestones of the differential include:
PURPOSE
A vehicle's wheels rotate at different speeds, mainly when turning
corners. The differential is designed to drive a pair of wheels while
allowing them to rotate at different speeds. In vehicles without a
differential, such as karts, both driving wheels are forced to rotate at the
same speed, usually on a common axle driven by a simple chain-drive
mechanism. When cornering, the inner wheel needs to travel a shorter
distance than the outer wheel, so with no differential, the result is the
inner wheel spinning and/or the outer wheel dragging, and this results in
difficult and unpredictable handling, damage to tires and roads, and
strain on (or possible failure of) the entire drivetrain.
DIFFERENTIAL TYPES
EPICYCLIC DIFFERENTIAL :-
DIFFERENTIAL CONSTRUCTION
PARTS
1 Flange
2 Pinion gear
3 Side gears
4 Ring gear
7 Spider gears
1 Flange :-
Differential flanges have caught the imagination of road racers, though
some still show a keen interest for internal engine parts. A limited-slip
differential is better as compared to a power and handling one, but you
should try to find the one that works and is affordable as well.
2 Pinion gear :-
Pinion gears come in different sizes number / spacing of teeth that
matches up with certain sizes of spur gears. The gear setup (specific sets
of spur gears and pinion gears) affects the speed and power of the RC.
Some gear setups provide more top end speed but may be slow off the
line while others get up to speed faster but may not be the fastest over
the long haul.
3 Side gears :-
With this differential, the side gears are coupled to the carrier via a
multi-disc clutch which allows extra torque to be sent to the wheel with
higher resistance then available at the other driven roadwheel when the
limit of friction is reached at that other wheel. Below the limit of friction
more torque goes to the slower (inside) wheel.
4 Ring Gear :-
A starter ring gear, sometimes called a starter ring or ring gear, is a
medium carbon steel ring with teeth that is fitted on the periphery of a
flexplate or flywheel of an internal combustion engine, mostly
for automotive applications.
The teeth of the starter ring are driven by the smaller gear (the pinion) of
the starter motor. The primary function of the starter ring is to
transfer torque from the starter motor pinion to the flywheel or flexplate
to rotate the engine to begin the cycle.
6 Spider gears :-
Spider gears are an integral part of you differential. They are part of the
gear set that allows your rear wheels to turn at different speeds, which is
necessary for many instances. When your vehicle goes into a turn, the
out wheel turns at a faster rate than the inner wheel; this is accomplished
through a series of gears including spider gears.
Spider gears offer you the ability to turn your vehicle without feeling the
rear end bump as you go around a turn. If it weren't for spider gears and
side gears within the differential, both rear wheels would turn at the
same speed. If you're only going straight, this is not a bad thing, but the
moment you go into a turn, the outside wheel will try to speed up. If
spider gears and side gears where not in place, that outer wheel would
not be able to turn faster than the inner wheel and would actually drag as
you went through the turn, producing a bumping, lurching motion.
Spider gears are provided in the differential from the manufacturer and
are one of the many shapes that gears can come in. Unlike spur gears,
spider gears meet the shaft or other gear at a right angle, allowing them
to be seated on shafts that do not touch and allowing the differential to
be smaller and yet provide the necessary performance for most
applications. Aftermarket, or performance differentials, have differently
sized spider gears as well as differential housing to provide better
traction for harder usage.
WORKING
The differential has three jobs:
To aim the engine power at the wheels
To act as the final gear reduction in the vehicle, slowing the
rotational speed of the transmission one final time before it hits
the wheels
To transmit the power to the wheels while allowing them to
rotate at different speeds (This is the one that earned the
differential its name.)
Car wheels spin at different speeds, especially when turning. You can
see from the animation that each wheel travels a different distance
through the turn, and that the inside wheels travel a shorter distance than
the outside wheels. Since speed is equal to the distance traveled divided
by the time it takes to go that distance, the wheels that travel a shorter
distance travel at a lower speed. Also note that the front wheels travel a
different distance than the rear wheels.
For the non-driven wheels on your car the front wheels on a rear-wheel
drive car, the back wheels on a front-wheel drive car this is not an issue.
There is no connection between them, so they spin independently. But
the driven wheels are linked together so that a single engine and
transmission can turn both wheels. If your car did not have a differential,
the wheels would have to be locked together, forced to spin at the same
speed. This would make turning difficult and hard on your car: For the
car to be able to turn, one tire would have to slip. With modern tires and
concrete roads, a great deal of force is required to make a tire slip. That
force would have to be transmitted through the axle from one wheel to
another, putting a heavy strain on the axle components.
FUNCTIONAL DESCRIPTION
The following description of a differential applies to a "traditional" rear-
wheel-drive car or truck with an "open" or limited slip differential
combined with a reduction gearset:
Torque is supplied from the engine, via the transmission, to a drive
shaft (British term: 'propeller shaft', commonly and informally
abbreviated to 'prop-shaft'), which runs to thefinal drive unit that
contains the differential. A spiral bevel pinion gear takes its drive from
the end of the propeller shaft, and is encased within the housing of the
final drive unit. This meshes with the large spiral bevel ring gear, known
as the crown wheel. The crown wheel and pinion may mesh
in hypoid orientation, not shown. The crown wheel gear is attached to
the differential carrier or cage, which contains the 'sun' and 'planet'
wheels or gears, which are a cluster of four opposed bevel gears in
perpendicular plane, so each bevel gear meshes with two neighbours,
and rotates counter to the third, that it faces and does not mesh with. The
two sun wheel gears are aligned on the same axis as the crown wheel
gear, and drive the axle half shafts connected to the vehicle's driven
wheels. The other two planet gears are aligned on a perpendicular axis
which changes orientation with the ring gear's rotation. In the two
figures shown above, only one planet gear (green) is illustrated,
however, most automotive applications contain two opposing planet
gears. Other differential designs employ different numbers of planet
gears, depending on durability requirements. As the differential carrier
rotates, the changing axis orientation of the planet gears imparts the
motion of the ring gear to the motion of the sun gears by pushing on
them rather than turning against them (that is, the same teeth stay in the
same mesh or contact position), but because the planet gears are not
restricted from turning against each other, within that motion, the sun
gears can counter-rotate relative to the ring gear and to each other under
the same force (in which case the same teeth do not stay in contact
IMPORTANT ASPECT
LOSS OF TRACTION
One undesirable side effect of a conventional differential is that it can
limit traction under less than ideal conditions. The amount of traction
required to propel the vehicle at any given moment depends on the load
at that instant—how heavy the vehicle is, how much drag and friction
there is, the gradient of the road, the vehicle's momentum, and so on.
The torque applied to each driving wheel is a result of
the engine, transmission and drive axles applying a twisting force
against the resistance of the traction at that roadwheel. In lower gears
and thus at lower speeds, and unless the load is exceptionally high, the
drivetrain can supply as much torque as necessary, so the limiting factor
becomes the traction under each wheel. It is therefore convenient to
define traction as the amount of torque that can be generated between
the tire and the road surface, before the wheel starts to slip. If the torque
applied to drive wheels does not exceed the threshold of traction, the
vehicle will be propelled in the desired direction; if not, then one or
more wheels will simply spin.
A conventional "open" (non-locked or otherwise traction-aided)
differential always supplies equal torque to each side. To illustrate how
this can limit torque applied to the driving wheels, imagine a
simple rear-wheel drive vehicle, with one rear roadwheel on asphalt
with good grip, and the other on a patch of slippery ice. It takes very
little torque to spin the side on slippery ice, and because a differential
splits torque equally to each side, the torque that is applied to the side
that is on asphalt is limited to this amount.
Based on the load, gradient, et cetera, the vehicle requires a certain
amount of torque applied to the drive wheels to move forward. Since an
open differential limits total torque applied to both drive wheels to the
amount utilized by the lower traction wheel multiplied by a factor of 2,
when one wheel is on a slippery surface, the total torque applied to the
driving wheels may be lower than the minimum torque required for
vehicle propulsion.
A proposed way to distribute the power to the wheels, is to use the
concept of gearless differential, of which a review has been reported by
Provatidis, but the various configurations seem to correspond either to
the "sliding pins and cams" type, such as the ZF B-70 available for early
VWs, or are a variation of the ball differential.
Many newer vehicles feature traction control, which partially mitigates
the poor traction characteristics of an open differential by using the anti-
lock braking system to limit or stop the slippage of the low traction
wheel, increasing the torque that can be applied to both wheels. While
not as effective in propelling a vehicle under poor traction conditions as
a traction-aided differential, it is better than a simple mechanical open
differential with no electronic traction assistance.
TRACTION AIDING DEVICES
There are various devices for getting more usable traction from vehicles
with differentials.
CONCLUSION
From the term paper I have came to know about
Differential
Its types
Parts
Construction
Working
Function
Loss of traction
Traction aiding devices
REFERENCES :-
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_(mechanical_device)#Lo
ss_of_traction
2. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/differential.htm
3. http://www.gearinfo.com/Spider-Gears.html