| Gears are one of the most basic transmission | | | | generated by the rotation of the wheels. |
| devices. You have heard about gears in cars, | | | | Hence, on the whole cycling-up the slope |
| bicycles, and many types of machines. If you | | | | becomes easier. A similar example could be |
| are not a mechanical engineer, you will be | | | | considered for a stick-shift car, whereby, |
| amazed by the extent to which gears affect | | | | you climb up steep slopes in a lower gear. |
| our daily life. As any student of mechanical | | | | And to think that in their simplest form, |
| engineering will tell you, gears are at the | | | | gears are nothing but an interlinked pair of |
| heart of any machinery. This is a basic | | | | toothed wheels. But, gears can get more |
| article to tell you what gears actually do. | | | | complicated. For instance, we could have a |
| There are two basic functions that gears | | | | chain of gears when gear-one rotates |
| perform. First, they make power travel from | | | | gear-two, which rotates gear-three and so on. |
| one part of a machine to another. For | | | | Likewise, we could have a situation where one |
| instance, when you are pedaling a bicycle, it | | | | of the toothed elements is a cylinder, while |
| is the arrangement of gears that causes the | | | | the other is a disc. Also, again going back |
| transmission of power from your leg movement | | | | to the example of the cycle, we could have |
| to the rotation of the wheels. Likewise with | | | | the two gears separated by some distance, but |
| most other forms of gear based machines. | | | | interlinked by a chain, or other transmitting |
| Second, gears act as reducers. Thereby, they | | | | device. |
| reduce the output speed but increase the | | | | |
| torque. To understand this, once again | | | | Ajeet Khurana writes on subjects ranging from |
| consider the example of a bicycle. If you are | | | | the esoteric to the scientific. Visit his |
| climbing up a slope, you move to a smaller | | | | site on Gears and Gear Technology. Also, |
| gear. This reduces the speed at which the | | | | visit his site on Grips. |
| cycle moves, but it increases the power | | | | |