Page:EB1911 - Volume 17.djvu/1023

Rh portions of the cones A1B1I, A2B2I, of which the narrow zones occupied by the teeth will be sufficiently near to a spherical surface described about O for practical purposes. To find the figures of the teeth, draw on a flat surface circular arcs ID1, ID2, with the radii A1I, A2I; those arcs will be the developments of arcs of the pitch-circles B1I, B2I, when the conical surfaces A1B1I, A2B2I are spread out flat. Describe the figures of teeth for the developed arcs as for a pair of spur-wheels; then wrap the developed arcs on the cones, so as to make them coincide with the pitch-circles, and trace the teeth on the conical surfaces.

§ 55. Teeth of Skew-Bevel Wheels.—The crests of the teeth of a skew-bevel wheel are parallel to the generating straight line of the hyperboloidal pitch-surface; and the transverse sections of the teeth at a given pitch-circle are similar to those of the teeth of a bevel-wheel whose pitch surface is a cone touching the hyperboloidal surface at the given circle.

§ 56. Cams.—A cam is a single tooth, either rotating continuously or oscillating, and driving a sliding or turning piece either constantly or at intervals. All the principles which have been stated in § 45 as being applicable to teeth are applicable to cams; but in designing cams it is not usual to determine or take into consideration the form of the ideal pitch-surface, which would give the same comparative motion by rolling contact that the cam gives by sliding contact.

§ 57. Screws.—The figure of a screw is that of a convex or concave cylinder, with one or more helical projections, called threads, winding round it. Convex and concave screws are distinguished technically by the respective names of male and female; a short concave screw is called a nut; and when a screw is spoken of without qualification a convex screw is usually understood.

The relation between the advance and the rotation, which compose the motion of a screw working in contact with a fixed screw or helical guide, has already been demonstrated in § 32; and the same relation exists between the magnitudes of the rotation of a screw about a fixed axis and the advance of a shifting nut in which it rotates. The advance of the nut takes place in the opposite direction to that of the advance of the screw in the case in which the nut is fixed. The pitch or axial pitch of a screw has the meaning assigned to it in that section, viz. the distance, measured parallel to the axis, between the corresponding points in two successive turns of the same thread. If, therefore, the screw has several equidistant threads, the true pitch is equal to the divided axial pitch, as measured between two adjacent threads, multiplied by the number of threads.

If a helix be described round the screw, crossing each turn of the thread at right angles, the distance between two corresponding points on two successive turns of the same thread, measured along this normal helix, may be called the normal pitch; and when the screw has more than one thread the normal pitch from thread to thread may be called the normal divided pitch.

The distance from thread to thread, measured on a circle described about the axis of the screw, called the pitch-circle, may be called the circumferential pitch; for a screw of one thread it is one circumference; for a screw of n threads, $(one circumference)⁄n$.

Let r denote the radius of the pitch circle; n the number of threads; the obliquity of the threads to the pitch circle, and of the        normal helix to the axis;

then

(31)

If a screw rotates, the number of threads which pass a fixed point in one revolution is the number of threads in the screw.

A pair of convex screws, each rotating about its axis, are used as an elementary combination to transmit motion by the sliding contact of their threads. Such screws are commonly called endless screws. At the point of contact of the screws their threads must be parallel; and their line of connexion is the common perpendicular to the acting surfaces of the threads at their point of contact. Hence the following principles:—

I. If the screws are both right-handed or both left-handed, the angle between the directions of their axes is the sum of their obliquities; if one is right-handed and the other left-handed, that angle is the difference of their obliquities.

II. The normal pitch for a screw of one thread, and the normal divided pitch for a screw of more than one thread, must be the same in each screw.

III. The angular velocities of the screws are inversely as their numbers of threads.

Hooke’s wheels with oblique or helical teeth are in fact screws of many threads, and of large diameters as compared with their lengths.

The ordinary position of a pair of endless screws is with their axes at right angles to each other. When one is of considerably greater diameter than the other, the larger is commonly called in practice a wheel, the name screw being applied to the smaller only; but they are nevertheless both screws in fact.

To make the teeth of a pair of endless screws fit correctly and work smoothly, a hardened steel screw is made of the figure of the smaller screw, with its thread or threads notched so as to form a cutting tool; the larger screw, or “wheel,” is cast approximately of the required figure; the larger screw and the steel screw are fitted up in their proper relative position, and made to rotate in contact with each other by turning the steel screw, which cuts the threads of the larger screw to their true figure.

§ 58. Coupling of Parallel Axes—Oldham’s Coupling.—A coupling is a mode of connecting a pair of shafts so that they shall rotate in the same direction with the same mean angular velocity. If the axes of the shafts are in the same straight line, the coupling consists in so connecting their contiguous ends that they shall rotate as one piece; but if the axes are not in the same straight line combinations of mechanism are required. A coupling for parallel shafts which acts by sliding contact was invented by Oldham, and is represented in fig. 107. C1, C2 are the axes of the two parallel shafts; D1, D2 two disks facing each other, fixed on the ends of the two shafts respectively; E1E1 a bar sliding in a diametral groove in the face of D1; E2E2 a bar sliding in a diametral groove in the face of D2: those bars are fixed together at A, so as to form a rigid cross. The angular velocities of the two disks and of the cross are all equal at every instant; the middle point of the cross, at A, revolves in the dotted circle described upon the line of centres C1C2 as a diameter twice for each turn of the disks and cross; the instantaneous axis of rotation of the cross at any instant is at I, the point in the circle C1C2 diametrically opposite to A.

Oldham’s coupling may be used with advantage where the axes of the shafts are intended to be as nearly in the same straight line as is possible, but where there is some doubt as to the practibility or permanency of their exact continuity.

§ 59. Wrapping Connectors—Belts, Cords and Chains.—Flat belts of leather or of gutta percha, round cords of catgut, hemp or other material, and metal chains are used as wrapping connectors to transmit rotatory motion between pairs of pulleys and drums.

Belts (the most frequently used of all wrapping connectors) require nearly cylindrical pulleys. A belt tends to move towards that part of a pulley whose radius is greatest; pulleys for belts, therefore, are slightly swelled in the middle, in order that the belt may remain on the pulley, unless forcibly shifted. A belt when in motion is shifted off a pulley, or from one pulley on to another of equal size alongside of it, by pressing against that part of the belt which is moving towards the pulley.

Cords require either cylindrical drums with ledges or grooved pulleys.

Chains require pulleys or drums, grooved, notched and toothed, so as to fit the links of the chain.

Wrapping connectors for communicating continuous motion are endless.

Wrapping connectors for communicating reciprocating motion have usually their ends made fast to the pulleys or drums which they connect, and which in this case may be sectors.

The line of connexion of two pieces connected by a wrapping connector is the centre line of the belt, cord or chain; and the comparative motions of the pieces are determined by the principles of § 36 if both pieces turn, and of § 37 if one turns and the other shifts, in which latter case the motion must be reciprocating.

The pitch-line of a pulley or drum is a curve to which the line of connexion is always a tangent—that is to say, it is a curve parallel to the acting surface of the pulley or drum, and distant from it by half the thickness of the wrapping connector.

Pulleys and drums for communicating a constant velocity ratio are circular. The effective radius, or radius of the pitch-circle of a circular pulley or drum, is equal to the real radius added to half the thickness of the connector. The