What would it be like if you kick-started your motorbike and
it always ran at a uniform speed? To begin with, it would be boring. In
addition there’s the disadvantage of decreased fuel efficiency and inability to
ride up heights. Thanks to gears you can adjust speed and make sure your
vehicle is able to make the most of the precious fuel in its tank. But that’s
just one of the several uses of gears. Gears are used when one needs to control
the speed or torque of a moving element.
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| Gears |
A gear is a rotating machine part which has teeth-like cuts
on one of its rotatable sides. When two or more of these parts work together
(see picture). The system is called a transmission. Gears are analogous to
pulleys, however they have added advantage –gears prevent slipping because of
their teeth-cut design. The most popular and commonly seen example of the gear
is the Spur gear used to adjust rotational speeds. Other types of gears
transform the direction of motion as well. An interesting ‘Sun and Plant’ gear
system was used by Scottish inventor, James Watt on his early engines instead
of a crank system for power transmission.
Most modern day transport vehicles employ gears to make the
best use of the power they generate by burning fuel. Without gears, journeys
would have been slower, inefficient and quite costly. Interestingly, compact
engines inside high-speed rides ranging from bikes to planes are benefitted
heavily by gears, without which they would be huge, unreliable, inefficient and
once again, costly.
