{"id":88,"date":"2014-11-17T03:26:44","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T03:26:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/box5393.temp.domains\/~quranive\/\/?p=88"},"modified":"2022-01-24T15:54:38","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T15:54:38","slug":"how-crowned-pulleys-make-belts-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/?p=88","title":{"rendered":"How Crowned Pulleys Make Belts Track"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Most people interested in machines know that adding a slight crown to a pulley tends to keep flat belts centered.  But it is not obvious how it works.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/box5393.temp.domains\/~quranive\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/belt_tracking_dia.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-89\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/box5393.temp.domains\/~quranive\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/belt_tracking_dia-300x232.png?resize=300%2C232\" alt=\"belt_tracking_dia\" width=\"300\" height=\"232\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/belt_tracking_dia.png?resize=300%2C232&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/belt_tracking_dia.png?w=514&amp;ssl=1 514w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As shown in the sketch above, introduction of a slight crown to the pulley causes the belt to bend when it is displaced laterally. Consider a point on the belt which comes into contact with the pulley at point <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/wp-content\/ql-cache\/quicklatex.com-8b041262368a139d18299c96a9d8f74e_l3.png?resize=12%2C11&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"ql-img-inline-formula \" alt=\"&#65;\" title=\"Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com\" height=\"11\" width=\"12\" style=\"vertical-align: 0px;\"\/> and sticks. Once it sticks to the pulley, it travels perpendicular to the axis of rotation of the pulley, coming to the point <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/wp-content\/ql-cache\/quicklatex.com-10285c2ba3e8af92e5e2c592a4006bab_l3.png?resize=17%2C13&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"ql-img-inline-formula \" alt=\"&#65;&#39;\" title=\"Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com\" height=\"13\" width=\"17\" style=\"vertical-align: 0px;\"\/> after one quarter of a revolution of the pulley. The belt has now moved to the position indicated by the dashed lines. Based on this argument, we see that a belt tends to climb the surface of a pulley whose surface is inclined relative to its axis of rotation. I came across this explanation in a fantastic old book called <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/wp-content\/ql-cache\/quicklatex.com-bdeacf7517a9ea01abe296ba2637b530_l3.png?resize=267%2C14&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"ql-img-inline-formula \" alt=\"&#92;&#101;&#109;&#112;&#104;&#123;&#69;&#108;&#101;&#109;&#101;&#110;&#116;&#115;&#32;&#111;&#102;&#32;&#77;&#101;&#99;&#104;&#97;&#110;&#105;&#115;&#109;&#44;&#32;&#51;&#114;&#100;&#32;&#69;&#100;&#105;&#116;&#105;&#111;&#110;&#125;\" title=\"Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com\" height=\"14\" width=\"267\" style=\"vertical-align: -3px;\"\/> by Schwamb, Merrill, and James, published in 1921 by Wiley.<\/p>\n<p>Crowned pulleys work well in practice provided that the belt material is not very stiff and that the belt width <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/wp-content\/ql-cache\/quicklatex.com-573f39170726f2a1ce471955ae39ebe0_l3.png?resize=12%2C7&#038;ssl=1\" class=\"ql-img-inline-formula \" alt=\"&#119;\" title=\"Rendered by QuickLaTeX.com\" height=\"7\" width=\"12\" style=\"vertical-align: 0px;\"\/> is not too large. Based on this understanding, one can compute how much crown to put into the pulley for a given tension and belt material.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most people interested in machines know that adding a slight crown to a pulley tends to keep flat belts centered. But it is not obvious how it works.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-88","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5f9h7-1q","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=88"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91,"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88\/revisions\/91"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=88"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=88"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mechanicsandmachines.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fseries&post=88"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}