Differential Gear Mechanism

Application ID: 36281


This model simulates the mechanism of a differential gear used in cars and other wheeled vehicles. A differential allows the outer drive wheel to rotate faster than the inner drive wheel during a turn. This is necessary when a vehicle turns in order to allow the wheel that is traveling along the outside of the turning curve to roll faster and to cover greater distance than the wheel on the inside of the turning curve. The average of the rotational speed of the two driving wheels is simply 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.

A transient analysis is performed to compute the motion of the spider gears in cases where a vehicle moves on a straight or curved path. The velocity magnitude of the different components and the angular velocity of inner and outer wheels are calculated for the two cases.

This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products: