Engineering / Complete free example
Gear teeth that tolerate a little movement
Why a small change in shaft spacing need not change a gear pair’s ratio.
The finding
Involute gear teeth can preserve the velocity ratio even when the center distance between a pair of gears varies slightly.
Context
Carnegie Mellon course material on mechanisms says the involute profile is easy to manufacture and that the center distance between a pair of involute gears can be varied without changing the velocity ratio.
Qualifications
This is a geometric tolerance claim, not a claim that any amount of shaft misalignment is harmless. Load, backlash, tooth strength, lubrication, and manufacturing quality still matter.
Supporting sources
- Carnegie Mellon University — 7.2.3 Conjugate Profiles
Research note
Prepared from LossyInfo’s RA1 research inventory. Sources rechecked with AI assistance on 2026-10-07. This is a sourced synthesis, not a guarantee that a claim will never need revision. Review the linked sources for your own use.
Record ra1-14009 · edition 2026-10-07-v1 · source-record SHA-256: 8862054041889f33c9555aecf13facd9c52f622ef74b4b881d7c9b7bfb3ef360
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