Gear Terminology and its Types
Pitch Circle :
Circle centered on and perpendicular to the axis, and passing through the pitch point. A predefined
diametral position on the gear where the circular tooth thickness, pressure angle and helix angles
are defined.
Addendum Circle :
Addendum circle is the outer most profile circle of a gear. Addendum is the radial distance
between the pitch circle and the addendum circle.
Dedendum Circle :
Dedendum circle is the inner most profile circle. Dedendum is the radial distance between the
pitch circle and the dedendum circle.
Addendum, a
Radial distance from the pitch surface to the outermost point of the tooth.
Dedendum, b
Radial distance from the depth of the tooth trough to the pitch surface.
Clearance :
Clearance is the radial distance from top of the tooth to the bottom of the tooth space in the
mating gear.
Backlash :
Backlash is the tangential space between teeth of mating gears at pitch circles.
Full Depth :
Full depth is sum of the addendum and the dedendum.
Face Width :
Face width is length of tooth parallel to axes.
Diametral Pitch :
Diametral pitch (p) is the number of teeth per unit volume.
p = (Number of Teeth) / (Diameter of Pitch circle)
Module :
Module (m) is the inverse of diametral pitch.
m = 1/p
Circular Pitch :
Circular pitch is the space in pitch circle used by each teeth.
Gear Ratio :
Gear ratio is numbers of teeth of larger gear to smaller gear.
Types of Gears
Gear
A gear or cogwheel is a rotating machine part having cut teeth, which mesh with another toothed
part to transmit torque, in most cases with teeth on the one gear being of identical shape, and often
also with that shape on the other gear. An advantage of gears is that the teeth of a gear prevent
slippage.
External vs internal gears
An external gear is one with the teeth formed on the outer surface of a cylinder or cone. Conversely,
an internal gear is one with the teeth formed on the inner surface of a cylinder or cone.
Spur Gears:
• Teeth is parallel to axis of rotation
• Transmit power from one shaft to another parallel shaft
• Used in Electric screwdriver, oscillating sprinkler, windup alarm clock, washing machine and
clothes dryer
Helical Gear:
• The teeth on helical gears are cut at an angle to the face of the gear
• 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
Herringbone gears:
• 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.
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
Bevel gears:
• Bevel gears are useful when the direction of a shaft's rotation needs to be changed
• They are usually mounted on shafts that are 90 degrees apart, but can be designed to work
at other angles as well
• 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.
WORM AND WORM GEAR:
• Worm gears resemble screws. A worm gear is usually meshed with a spur gear or a helical
gear, which is called the gear,wheel, or worm wheel.
• 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
Non-circular:
Non-circular gears are designed for special purposes. While a regular gear is optimized to transmit
torque to another engaged member with minimum noise and wear and maximum efficiency, a non-
circular gear's main objective might be ratiovariations, axle displacement oscillations and more.
Common applications include textile machines, potentiometers andcontinuously variable
transmissions.
Sun and planet
Sun and planet gearing was a method of converting reciprocating motion into rotary motion in steam
engines. James Wattused it on his early steam engines to get around the patent on the crank, but it
also provided the advantage of increasing the flywheel speed so Watt could use a lighter flywheel.
