Chapter Eight

GEAR TRAIN
 1.1DIFINITION
• Gears are machine elements, which are used for power transmission between shafts, separated by small
distance.
• Irrespective of the type, each gear is provided with projections called teeth and intermediate depressions
called tooth spaces.
• While two gears are meshing, the teeth of one gear enters the spaces of the other. Thus, the drive is positive
and when one gear rotates, the other also rotates; transmitting power from one shaft to the other.
Cont’d
GEAR TRAINS
A gear train is a combination of several gears arranged in a chain fashion such that the follower of one
combination is the driver of the next, and so on.
 Gear trains are widely used in many kinds of mechanisms whenever a change in speed or torque of rotating
members is required.
 The nature of train used depend up on the velocity ratio required and relative position of axis of the shaft.
 It may consists of spur gear, helical gear bevel gear or spiral gear.
 1.2ANGULAR VELOCITY RATIO(train value)
 It is the ratio of the output angular velocity to the input angular velocity and it is designated by e.
 therefore ,

 In gear train the determination of whether the speed of the current gear is in the same or opposite sense from
a preselected direction is Usually placed by inspection.
 In gear train the gear which are in mesh have the same circular pitch, module and diametral pitch
 So that ,Train value can also be expressed as in terms of number of teeth of the two meshing gears.
 Cont’d
 Consider the simple fear train shown below;
let 𝜔1 = angular speed of gear 1
𝜔2 = angular speed of gear 2
𝑇1 =number of teeth of gear 1
𝑇2 =number of teeth of gear 1

 The diametral pitch of a pair of gears in mesh is defined as;

𝐷1 𝐷2
 peripheral velocity at the point of contact to be; V=𝜔2
2
= 𝜔3
2
BUT, D=T/P
Then velocity can be determined in terms of the diametral pitch as;
𝑇1 𝑇2 𝜔2 𝑇1
V=𝜔1 = 𝜔2 ,𝑉 = 𝜔1 𝑇1 = 𝜔2 𝑇2 OR =
𝑃 𝑃 𝜔1 𝑇2
CONT’D
 In general We can conclude that, for a gear train where some gears are drivers and others are followers, the
velocity ratio is given by;
𝜔𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟 𝜔2 𝑇1
e= = =
𝜔𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟 𝜔1 𝑇2

Therefore;

Considering their direction , (where the sign is to be placed by inspection ).

𝜔2 𝑇1
a)For external gear e=− =
𝜔1 𝑇2

𝜔2 𝑇1
b)For internal gear e=+ =+
𝜔1 𝑇2
It can be proved that this equation holds good even if there are any number intermediate gear.
This intermediate gear are called idler(idle) gears, and they are used for
1)connecting gears where a large center distance is required
2) obtaining the desired direction of motion of the driver gear (i.e cw or ccw)
 Cont’d
 Example ,consider the compound gear train shown below;

 The velocity ratio will be;

𝜔 𝑇
𝑒1 =𝜔3 = 𝑇2
2 3

𝜔4 𝑇3
𝑒2 = =
𝜔3 𝑇4
𝜔6 𝑇5
𝑒3 = =
𝜔5 𝑇6
 The train value in terms of teeth number , is obtained‘ to be
𝑇2 𝑇5
e=𝑒1 𝑒2 𝑒3 = *
𝑇4 𝑇6
From the above velocity ratio equation, it can be noted that:
i) the idler gear 3 does not affect the velocity ratio, and
𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑡ℎ 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑟𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑟
ii) the velocity ratio is given by , e=
𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑑𝑢𝑐𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑡ℎ 𝑛𝑢𝑚𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑒𝑒𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟
Cont’d
Question 2
Consider the following cases to prove that the intermediate gear don’t affect the
velocity ratio. Also analyze the direction of each of the trains.
 TYPES OF GEAR TRAINS
 There are many types of gear train ,the following gear trains are types based on the arrangement of the wheel
(axis of gear are fixed).
A)simple gear train -only one gear is mounted on each shaft
- the gears are in pure series connection
- The gear ratio is usually limited to the ratio 1 : 10.

𝑇 𝑇1 𝑇1
𝑒𝑎 = 1 , 𝑒𝑏 = , 𝑒𝑐 =
𝑇2 𝑇3 𝑇4
if number of gear are even the direction of rotation of the driver and follower is in opposite but if their number of
gear are odd their direction will be in same direction.
CONT’D
B)compound gear train -more than one gears are mounted on the gear shaft
-gear train is the parallel or parallel-series connection instead of the pure
series connection.
-Gears on the same shaft have equal speed.

 For this train ,expressing the train value(speed) in terms of both speed and teeth number
we have;
𝑤 𝑇 ×𝑇 ×𝑇
e=𝑒1 𝑒2 𝑒3 =𝑤6 = 𝑇1 ×𝑇3 ×𝑇5 , so we can say
1 2 4 6
Cont’d
 The advantage of compound train over simple gear train is that much larger speed reduction from the first shaft to
the last shaft will be obtained with small gears.

 The figure above shows that how compound gear train used to reduce the speed which comes from the motor with
small size gear .(the last gear will not expected to be large as in simple gear train in order to reduce the speed).
Cont’d
1
 CENTER DISTANCE BETEWEN GEAR shaft
 Sometimes ,the spur gears (i.e the driver and driven )are to be designed for the given velocity ratio and distance
between centers of their shaft.
 Let
.
𝑑1 +𝑑2
 then x = 𝑜𝑟 𝑟1 + 𝑟2 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 , 𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑑𝑖𝑎𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑓𝑡
2
 we know that diametral pitch(P) ,module(m) and circular pitch(p) of the meshing gears are is given by;
𝐷 1 𝜋𝐷
,𝑀 = = AND p= ,From diametral pitch equation 𝑇 = 𝑝𝑑
𝑇 𝑃 𝑇

 Substituting the above equation, we have

𝑤 𝑇 𝑃𝐷1
e= 2 = 1=
𝑤1 𝑇2 𝑃𝐷2
 Finally ,the equation will be rearranged in to,
𝑤2 𝑇1 𝐷1
e= = =
𝑤1 𝑇2 𝐷2
example
c)Riveted gear train
It is special type of compound gear train in which the
axes of the first(first drive) and last gears(last follower)
are co-axial(the same center axis).

From the diagram we see that gear 1 (the first driver)

axis is c-axial with that of the last driven(follower).

In this type of gear train the direction of the first

diver(gear) and the last gear(follower) are
The same or like.

Such gear trains are used in automobile transmissions

Lath back gears, industrial speed reducer and clocks
cont’d
The speed ratio(e) become;
𝑤4 𝑇1 𝑇3
=
𝑤1 𝑇2 𝑇4
Considering center distance
𝑑1 + 𝑑2 𝑑3 + 𝑑4
x= =
2 2
𝑑1 + 𝑑2 =𝑑3 + 𝑑4
Also ,the circular pitch, module and diametral pitch
are assumed to be the same, therefore number of tooth
of each gear is directly proportional to its
circumference or radius(diameter).

i.e 𝑑1 + 𝑑2 =𝑑3 + 𝑑4 or 𝑇1 + 𝑇2 =𝑇3 + 𝑇4

 Example 1
Figure below shows the pitch diameters of a set of spur gears which form a gear
train.
Calculate the velocity ratio and the train value of the gear train. What is the
speed and direction of rotation of gear 5, gear 7.
 example

The speed ratio of the riveted gear

train shown in the figure is to be
12.the module pitch of gear A and B is
3.125 mm and of gear C and D is
2.5mm.
Calculate the suitable number of teeth
for the gears.no gear to have less than
24 teeth.
Axis of shaft not fixed
A planetary or epicyclical gear train
 is one in which the mounting shaft of gears are not
stationary relative to mounting shafts of other
gears (the shaft axis of one gear rotate around over
the axis of another gear which have fixed shaft
axis.
 It have 4 main part. These are the sun gear, planet
gear, ring gear and carrier .
 planet gear shaft rotate about sun gear shaft and
/or ring gear shaft.
 The arm can be input or out put element, and can
be fixed or allowed to rotate.
 With this motion, a gear will be so driven that it
not only rotates about its own center but at the
same time its center rotates about another center
 CONT’D
• In the figure shown , gear A and arm C have common axis at
𝑜1 about which they rotate.
• If the Arm is fixed , the gear train is simple gear train and
gear A can drive gear b or vice –verse, but if gear A is fixed
and the arm is rotated about the axis of gear A(𝑜1 ),then the
gear B is forced to rotate up on and around gear A .
• Then gear A become the sun gear and gear B become the
planetary.
• such motion is called epicyclical and the gear train arranged
in such manner that the one or more of their member move
up on and around another member are known as epicyclic
gear train.
• Epi up on and cycle means around.
• It can be compound or simple
 METHODS OF ANALYSIS OF PLANETARY GEAR TRAINS
It is more difficult to determine the angular-velocity ratio of a planetary gear train than that of
an ordinary train because of the double rotation of the planet.
There are three methods for the analysis of planetary gear trains.
(i) the tabulation method
(ii) the formula method,,
(iii) the instantaneous center method.
The last method has been treated in Chapter 3 and will not be treated here.
In this section we will consider the tabulation method, in which the results will be treated in
table form.
 The Tabulation method
• Given certain values for the speed of the sun gear and the planet gear
carrier, we want to determine the speed of the internal gear. In applying
tl;le tabulation method, we carry out the following three steps.
i) First, lock the gears to the arm and rotate the arm one positive turn. This
causes the gears to rotate one positive turn with the arm.
ii) Next, fixing the arm, rotate one or more of the sun gears and apply the
relation for the angular velocity ratio.
iii) Tabulate the resulting motion and add the turns of each gear in steps (i)
and (ii) to satisfy the given conditions of motion.