Gears and horsepower

[gobigracing]

I am designing a product for dirt bikes and I need to transfer the power from the front to the rear. I decided to use a shaft drive from a chain drive. My question is how do I find out how much power a gear can take. I want to use some kind of bevel gear as the ration is already set. It needs to at least be able to take 60 hp. But if you could show me some way to figure it out how much hp a gear can take. Also how do you determine shaft strength. The speed will be close to 3000 rpm.

 

[MikeHalloran]

A catalog from Boston Gear or Browning or most any other supplier of power transmission components will lead you to the answer.

Gears are limited by several factors, the first of which is torque, which depends on the power being transmitted and the rotation speed. The equations will be in the catalog.

As you get deeper into the problem, you'll find that you'll have to trade limited life for weight, as bevel gears to transmit 60HP for an indefinite amount of time (the usual industrial standard) will be quite a bit larger than you anticipate.

To get a feel for how that works, look up the industrial power/ torque capacity of a typical motorcycle's drive chains in the same catalog.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA