Every-day Science: Volume 6. The Conquest of Nature — John Shaqi
Every-day Science: Volume 6. The Conquest of NatureWilliams, Henry Smith
Science
Every-day Science: Volume 6. The Conquest of Nature
Williams, Henry Smith
Industrial arts; Machinery
It will be observed that the pulley is a mechanism that enables the
user to transmit power to a distance. But this indeed is true in a
certain sense of every form of lever. Numberless other contrivances
are in use by which power is transmitted, through utilization of the
same principle of the lever, either through a short or through a
relatively long distance. A familiar illustration is the windlass,
which consists of a cylinder rotating on an axis propelled by a long
handle, a rope being wound about the cylinder. This is a lever of
the second class, the axis acting as fulcrum, and the rope operating
about the circumference of the cylinder typifying the weight, which
may be actually at a considerable distance, as in the case of the
old-fashioned well with its windlass and bucket, or of the simple form
of derrick sometimes called a sheerlegs.
OTHER MEANS OF TRANSMITTING POWER
Power is transmitted directly from one part of a machine to another,
in the case of a great variety of machines, with the aid of cogged
gearing wheels of various sizes. The modifications of detail in the
application of these wheels may be almost infinite, but the principle
involved is always the same. The case of two wheels toothed about
the circumference, the teeth of the two wheels fitting into one
another, illustrates the principle involved. A consideration of the
mechanism will show that here we have virtually a lever fixed at both
ends, represented by the radii of the two wheels, the power being
applied through the axle of one wheel, and the weight, for purposes
of calculation, being represented by the pressure of the teeth of one
wheel upon those of the other. So this becomes a lever of the second
class, and the relations of power between the two wheels are easily
calculated from the relative lengths of the radii. If, for example,
one radius is twice as long as the other, the transmission of power
will be, obviously, in the proportion of two to one, and meantime the
distance traversed by the circumference of one wheel will be twice as
great as that traversed by the other.
A modification of the toothed wheel is furnished by wheels which may be
separated by a considerable distance, and the circumferences of which
are connected by a belt or by a chain. The principle of action here
is precisely the same, the belt or chain serving merely as a means of
lengthening out our lever. The relative sizes of the wheels, and not
the length of the belt or chain, is the determining factor as regards
the relative forces required to make the wheels revolve.
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