GB432673A - Improved differential driving mechanism - Google Patents

Abstract

432,673. Differential gearing. WALES, H. N., 19, Carson Street, Kew, Victoria, Australia. Nov. 5, 1934, No. 31773. Convention date, Aug. 4. [Class 80 (ii)] A differential drive suitable for motor vehicles which is self-locking or irreversible, or reversible to any desired degree, and which will prevent single wheel spin, has an annular driving element with which co-operate bars rotatable with but slidable relatively to said element, the bars being provided with teeth or projections adapted to engage sinuous or zigzag grooves around the peripheries of two separate collars fast with the respective axles. A cylindrical housing 2 is driven through a crown wheel 3 and has on its inner periphery a number of longitudinal slideways 8 accommodating two series of drive-transmitting bars 9a, 9b, Figs. 1, 5, each bar having two teeth 11, Fig. 9, slidably engaging grooves 14, 16, 17 in collars 12, 13 fast on the axles 6, 7 respectively. The collar 12 has a single groove, but two grooves are formed in the collar 13, the grooves being oppositely disposed. The bars are alternately long and short, the teeth thereon are diamond-shaped and are spaced apart a distance equal respectively to the longitudinal distance between the groove 14, Fig. 5, and parts of the grooves 16, 17 parallel thereto when the junctions of the grooves are in line. With a vehicle travelling on a straight course, the assembly will rotate as a unit, the bars 9a, 9<b> being unable to move axially as the teeth 11 of either or both are engaged in oppositely inclined portions of the grooves. Upon deviation from a straight course, relative movement of the shafts is permitted by sliding of the teeth in the grooves and axial reciprocation of the bars in the housing 2. The mechanism may be rendered irreversible to avoid single wheel spin, or reversible to a limited extent, by suitably selecting the angle which the sections of the grooves make with a plane normal to the axis of the shafts. The side faces of the grooves and bars may be parallel or inclined.