Synchronous Belt Drive Mechanisms And Designing

Belt drive mechanisms are general application in machinery. And there are several types of belt mechanisms are avaliable in market. One of these types is the synchronous belt drive mechanisms which has various advantages over the use of v-belt drive mechanisms. In here, we explain;

• The advantages of synchronous belt drive mechanisms,
• Important points about the use and installation of belt drive mechanisms,
• Design procedures of synchronous belt drive mechanisms.

What Are The Advantages Of Synchronous Belt Drive Mechanisms?

The general difference of synchronous belt drive mechanisms other than v-belts, they have teeth at the inner side of belt. These teeth are comply with the grooves of sprockets which are acting as pulleys at the power transmission between different shafts are motor and shafts.

Because of these teeths that attaches the synchronous belt drives onto sprockets, there is no slippage and creep of belt on sprockets. Because of this, there is no place of loss of rotations and powers on given time like v-belts. At v-belt mechanisms, there can be slippage and creep of belts resulting from the the toothless mechanism.

At v-belt mechanisms, these creep and slippage can be compansated with the application of high assembly strain application between the belts and pulleys.

But for synchronous belt mechanisms, there is no need of such high assembly loads as v-belts to obtain slipless and creepless drive. This means that, there is no excessive radial loads on motor and shafts. But also, there is slight of assembly load application for synchronous belt drives.

Because these nature of synchronous belt mechanisms, they are also called as ‘timing belt’ mechanisms. And they can be used in machineries at where precision is very important. At power transmission of 3D printers, robotic mechanisms, synchronous belt drive mechanisms are generally used.

In market, some advanced synchronous belts are produced from fiberglass core as tensile stressed, which are coated with fabrics or rubbers. They are very long lasting and has very good load and power transmission capacities.

How To Design And Select Synchronous Belt Drive Mechanisms?

Like other machine elements applications, synchronous belt drive mechanisms have also standards. There are lots of brands that are producing synchronous belts. And these brands have catalogues to select a proper synchronous belt drive mechanisms for your application.

Actually, design procedure of synchronous belt drive mechanism is very similar with v-belt drive design. You can design a synchronous belt drive mechanism by following v-belt drive design procedures and steps. Here we provide you the summary of design steps for synchronous belt drive mechanisms;

• First of all, you need to determine the rated power of driving electric motor or driving shaft.
• From this rated power that you determined, you need to determine the desing power for synchronous belt drive mechanism.
• The pitch of a synchronous belt is the distance between respective teeth. As we stated above, there are lots of synchronous belt manufacturers avaliable in market. You need to select the synchronous belt which has proper pitch length for your application.
• To transmit load, power and moment in a specific ratio between motor and shaft, you need to determine the required ratio. This ratio is also the speed ratio between input and output sprockets.
• Also, there are lots of sprocket manufacturers avaliable in market. Select proper pair of sprockets will give you desired ratio from the catalogues that are provided from manufacturers.
• Center distance between input and output sprockets are determined with the placements of motor and shaft in your construction. So, you need to determine your belt length according to the sprocket diameters and center distance between them.
• In service, the synchoronous belt undergoes the biggest stress at the enterance onto smaller sprocket. So, you may need to select a proper synchronous belt length correction factor from the tables provided from manufacturer. These correction factors can be bigger or smaller than or smaller than 1.
• Finally, speficy final design details and additional constructuion elements for the construction of belts and sprockets to system.

Points To Remember About Synchronous Belt Drive Systems

When you are selecting your sprockets for your system, be sure about that the side flanges of sprockets which prevent the slippage of synchronous belts axially from sprockets.

In the installatiom step of synchronous belts, a small center distance allowance must be given to attach belt teeths without force. Then, provide required tension with the increasing the center distance which is generally recommended from manufacturer.

The loads on thigh and slack sides of synchronous belts are much more lower than the v-belts, which provides lower bearing loads.

These are the general important points about the synchronous belt drive mechanisms and design of them. Do not forget to leave your comments and questions about synchronous belt or timing belt mechanisms below.

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