What is Gear Terminology?
In mechanical industries, gears are commonly employed for power transmission. It's used when the distance between the driver and the driven shaft isn't too great. Because it is the only positive drive that can transfer an exact velocity ratio to the driven shaft, it is widely used in various machines and mechanical devices.
Gear Terminology Definition
"Gear terminology" refers to all definitions used to define a gear or the terminologies needed to make a gear. The most common explanations are as follows:
Pitch Surface | Dedendum | The flank of the Tooth |
Pitch Circle | Addendum Circle | Fillet Radius |
Pitch Circle Diameter | Dedendum Circle | Clearance |
Pitch Point | Base Circle | Backlash |
Circular Pitch | Whole Depth | Gear Ratio |
Diametral Pitch | Working Depth | Arc of Contact |
Module | Tooth Thickness | Contact Ratio |
Top-land | Tooth Space | Pressure Angle |
Addendum | The face of the Tooth |
Gear Terminology Diagram
The diagram shown below carries all the essential gear terminology:
Figure: Gear Terminology Diagram
Pitch surface
The outer surface of a hypothetical friction wheel that acts as a reference surface for setting the gear teeth is known as a "pitch surface" in gear terminology.
Pitch Circle
A pitch circle is an imaginary circle that would produce the same motion as the actual gear through pure rolling motion. The size of pitch circles for a given pair of mated gears fluctuates with centre distance because they are imaginary by nature.
Pitch Circle Diameter
The pitch circle diameter is the diameter of the pitch circle. The pitch circle diameter is mainly used to determine the gear size. Pitch diameter is another term for it. The diameter of the pitch circle is
d = nm
(where n is the number of teeth and m is the module). The pitch circle sizes are crucial when identifying the shafts of two mating gears.
Pitch Point
The common point of both meshing gear’s pitch circles is known as the "pitch point" when they are in contact. Or, to put it another way, the pitch point is the point of tangency between the two pitch circles.
Circular Pitch
Circular pitch is the distance between a location on one tooth and the equivalent position on the next tooth, measured around the circumference of the pitch circle. Pc is the symbol for it.
Pc = πD/T
- D = diameter of the pitch circle
- T = No. of teeth on the wheel
Diametral Pitch
It is the ratio of the number of teeth to the diameter of the pitch circle. It is indicated by Pd.
Pd = T/D = π/Pc
Where,
- T= No. of teeth,
- D= Pitch circle diameter.
Module
A "Module" in gear terminology is a measurement unit that shows the size of the gear. Modules of two mating gears must be the same. It is calculated by dividing the gear's reference diameter by the number of teeth.
m= D/T
Top-land
The top land of a gear tooth is its top surface.
Addendum
The addendum of the gear is the distance between the pitch circle and the tooth tip circle.
Dedendum
The dedendum of a gear is the distance between the pitch radius and the root radius at the centre of one gear tooth.
Addendum Circle
The addendum circle in gear terminology is concentric with the standard (reference) pitch circle and radially distant from it by the addendum amount. It coincides with the tops of the teeth of a gear. The addendum circle for external gears is on the outside cylinder, whereas the addendum circle for internal gears is on the inside cylinder.
Dedendum Circle
In gear terminology, a dedendum circle is a tangent to the bottom of a gear wheel's gaps between teeth.
Base Circle
The base circle of the involute gear is the circle from which the tooth profiles of the involute gear are constructed.
Whole Depth
The whole depth of a gear is the radial distance between the top land and the tooth's root. It's the total of the addendum and dedendum. It is termed total depth as well.
Working Depth
The depth of engagement of two gears, or the sum of their addendums, is known as working depth. When the centre distance is standard, the standard working distance is the amount of tooth that extends into the tooth space of a mating gear.
Tooth Thickness
The arc length between opposite faces of a tooth, measured around the standard pitch circle, is the tooth thickness of a gear. Because this length cannot be measured directly, a different gear dimension is measured instead, and the tooth thickness is calculated from there.
Tooth Space
The tooth spacing is the distance between two consecutive teeth measured around the circumference of the pitch circle.
The face of the Tooth
The working surface of the tooth above the pitch circle is referred to as the face of the tooth.
The flank of the Tooth
The working surface between the pitch circle and the bottom land, including the gear tooth fillet, is known as the tooth flank.
Fillet Radius
The circle's radius connects the root circle to the tooth's flank part.
Clearance
The space between the gear's outside diameter and its mate's root diameter is known as clearance. This margin compensates for thermal expansion during operation and avoids a gear tooth's top from interfering with the root of its mate gear tooth.
Backlash
This is the amount by which the width of the tooth spacing exceeds the mating gear's tooth thickness.
Gear Ratio
It is the ratio of the larger to the smaller number of teeth in a pair of mating gears. The involute gear's path of contact is a straight line parallel to the base circle traced by the point of contact of two teeth from the beginning to the end of the engagement.
Arc of Contact
The arc of contact is the path traced by a point on a pitch circle from the beginning to the end of the engagement of a specific tooth pair.
Contact Ratio
More than one pair of teeth should always stay in contact to lessen the average load shared by a pair of teeth. The average number of pairs of teeth in contact is known as the contact ratio.
Pressure Angle
The angle of obliquity in gear terminology, also known as the pressure angle to gear teeth, is the angle formed by the tooth face and the tangent of the gear wheel. It's the angle formed by the pressure line (which runs parallel to the tooth surface) and the plane tangent to the pitch surface at a pitch point.
For more important topics and to understand the theory of machines, you can refer to the following video on the Byju Exam Prep's official youtube channel.
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