Differential Gearbox

Last crawled date: 1 year, 11 months ago

A differential is a gear train with three shafts that has the property that the angular velocity of one shaft is the average of the angular velocities of the others, or a fixed multiple of that average.

In automobiles and other wheeled vehicles, the differential allows the outer drive wheel to rotate faster than the inner drive wheel during a turn. This is necessary when the vehicle turns, making the wheel that is traveling around the outside of the turning curve roll farther and faster than the other. The average of the rotational speed of the two driving wheels equals the input rotational speed of the drive shaft. An increase in the speed of one wheel is balanced by a decrease in the speed of the other.

Automotive differential (B&W Image): The drive gear 2 is mounted on the carrier 5 which supports the planetary bevel gears 4 which engage the driven bevel gears 3 attached to the axles 1.