TechArchive

Original article date: February 1999 Built to a modular concept Mayr Transmissions’ Smartflex coupling is optimised for the requirements of servo drive lines and offers the machine designer the optimum flexibility with minimum stockholding. Servo applications for direct drive lines are very common today. The vast increase in quantity has made the drive lines more [...]

Original article date: June 2000 Need a specialist bearing, but don’t know where to turn? Tommy Miller looks at a new range that seems to fulfil most unusual needs Specialist bearings have traditionally come from a variety of sources, depending on whether the need is for resistance to high temperatures, corrosive fluids, vacuum, super-clean conditions, [...]

This article was originally written in the period 1995-2000 Mayr Transmissions argues that electronic overload protection still can’t react quickly enough. Electronic devices for overload protection used to be extremely slow, compared to mechanical torque limiting systems, such as the Mayr EAS-NC. With substantial improvements in servomotors and intelligent controls, this gap has been reduced [...]

Original article date: January 2000 Alan Quinn reviews Flender Power Transmission’s new technical handbook. Will it become an industry benchmark? Covering a wide variety of calculations and useful data through 12 sections running over 150 detailed pages, the Flender Power Transmission technical handbook has a place on any design engineer’s bookshelf. The pages cover almost [...]

Original article date: May 2000 Most brakes simply operate as ‘on/off’ devices, but this often proves to be unsatisfactory. Tommy Miller describes a new intelligent brake from Lenze. Although conventional spring-operated brakes perform adequately when they are simply required to prevent motion, there is often a need to slow a machine progressively or to use [...]

Original article date: October 1999 Some of the most interesting news in power transmission this month has been software related. STUART NIVEN reports Two gear suppliers are busy using computer systems to help with gear design this month. Holroyd is playing a leading role in developing a radical new method for predicting contact patterns and [...]

Original article date: March 2000 What exactly is meant by the terms ‘maintenance-free’ and ‘sealed-for-life’ when when they are applied to bearings? Derek Hoult of Ina Bearings explains Maintenance-free bearings are very good for use in areas that are difficult or hazardous to get at for re-greasing bearings, and they also have the added advantage [...]

Original article date: November 1998 Bonding PTFE to traditional metal backing plates is the key to a direct replacement for many tilting pad thrust bearing applications which currently use whitemetal (Babbit metal). Based on a PTFE sliding surface Michell Bearings’ Tetraglide allows much larger specific loads than whitemetal – reportedly up to three times as [...]

This article was originally written in the period 1995-2000 Flexible membrane couplers exploit the tensile and flexural properties of membranes (discs) pressed from cold-rolled stainless spring steel. Attached alternately to the driver and driven members, the membranes transmit torque in tension, while flexing readily in bending mode to comply with alignment errors. These heat-treated membranes [...]

Original article date: February 2000 For 78-year-old Howard Arneson, who invented the famous Arneson surface drive propulsion system, slicing through ocean swells at over 100mph is just a piece of cake. The Arneson drive, now made under license by US-based transmission systems manufacturer Twin Disc, is probably the most popular propulsion system in high speed [...]