Elements of Mechanical Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Gear Drives
Gears – What are they?
• Gear drives are suitable for
power transmission over a
short distance with a constant
velocity ratio.
• Gears are wheels with teeth.
Gears mesh together and make
things turn. Gears are used to
transfer motion or power from
one moving part to another.
Gears are generally used for one of four
different reasons:
• To reverse the direction of rotation
• To increase or decrease the speed of rotation
• To move rotational motion to a different axis
TYPES OF GEARS
1. According to the position of axes of the
shafts.
a. Parallel
1.Spur Gear
2.Helical Gear
3.Rack and Pinion
b. Intersecting
Bevel Gear
c. Non-intersecting and Non-parallel
worm and worm gears
Types of Gears
“According to the position of axes of the shafts”
A. Parallel
Spur Gears Helical Gears
Herringbone Gears
B. Perpendicular Axis C. Planetary
Intersecting Non Intersecting Planetary Gears
Bevel Gears Worm Gears
SPUR GEAR
• Teeth is parallel to axis of rotation
• Transmit power from one shaft to another
parallel shaft
• Contact between mating gears will be
along a line- higher power transmission
• Instantaneous line contact when teeth
mesh will results into high noise
• Spur Gears in any transmission system are
employed for changing the speed and the
torque and are fixed on shafts.
• Used in Electric screwdriver, oscillating
sprinkler, windup alarm clock, washing
machine and clothes dryer, automobile
gear boxes.
Gear ‘A’ is called the ‘driver’ because this is
turned by a motor. As gear ‘A’ turns it meshes
with gear ‘B’ and it begins to turn as well. Gear
‘B’ is called the ‘driven’ gear.
Spur Gears
Pinion
Gear
Here, axes of driving and driven shafts are parallel and co-planar
Spur Gears - Types
External Set: Opposite Internal Set: Movement in
Movement the same direction
Helical Gear
• The teeth on helical gears are cut at an angle to
the face of the gear in the form of helix.
• Contact between mating gears is curvilinear.
• This gradual engagement makes helical gears
operate much more smoothly and quietly than
spur gears
• One interesting thing about helical gears is that if
the angles of the gear teeth are correct, they can
be mounted on perpendicular shafts, adjusting the
rotation angle by 90 degrees
Helical Gear…
The main disadvantage of helical gears is that it produces end thrusts on the
driving and driven shafts.
•Helical Gears can be used for transmitting motion between parallel shafts as
between perpendicular shafts. Helical gears used for transmission at an angle are
called SPIRAL GEARS.
•In spiral gears, contact between mating gears is point contact- low power
transmission.
Herringbone gears
HERRING-BONE Gears are pairs of Helical Gears. These
gears are used for large power transmission.
• To avoid axial thrust, two
helical gears of opposite
hand can be mounted side
by side, to cancel resulting
thrust forces
• Herringbone gears are
mostly used on heavy
machinery.
Bevel gears
• Bevel gears can be used to change the direction of
drive in a gear system by 90 degrees.
• A good example is seen as the main mechanism for
a hand drill. As the handle of the drill is turned in a
vertical direction, the bevel gears change the
rotation of the chuck to a horizontal rotation.
• The teeth on bevel gears can be straight, spiral or
hypoid
• locomotives, marine applications, automobiles,
printing presses, cooling towers, power plants, steel
plants, railway track inspection machines, etc
Straight and Spiral Bevel Gears
Elliptical Gears
• Used in applications to obtain varying rate of speed
in each revolution of the driven shaft.
• The elliptical gears are mounted on the driving and
driven shafts with their centres coinciding with one
of the foci of the ellipse of the pitch lines.
WORM AND WORM GEAR
• Worm gears are used when large gear reductions
are needed. It is common for worm gears to have
reductions of 20:1, and even up to 300:1 or greater
• Many worm gears have an interesting property that
no other gear set has: the worm can easily turn the
gear, but the gear cannot turn the worm
• Worm gears are used widely in material handling
and transportation machinery, machine tools,
automobiles etc
Rack and pinion
• Rack and pinion gears are used
to convert rotation (From the
pinion) into linear motion (of the
rack)
• A perfect example of this is the
steering system on many cars
The rotary motion of pinion 1 (small gear) is
transformed into linear motion of the rack 2.
For transmitting large power worm & worm
rack transmission is employed.
A ‘rack and pinion’ gears system looks quite unusual. However, it is still
composed of two gears. The ‘pinion’ is the normal round gear and
the ‘rack’ is straight or flat. The ‘rack’ has teeth cut in it and they
mesh with the teeth of the pinion gear.
The pinion rotates and moves the rack in a straight line - another way
of describing this is to say ‘rotary motion’ changes to ‘linear motion’.
Thank You
