The Cardan

Discover our documentation, our studies and our industrial achievements relative to the Universal Joint :

The cardan (or more precisely the Universal Joint) is a mechanical device that allows the transmission of angular rotation between two shafts with coinciding geometric axles.
This technique (not to be confused with gimbals) is used on vehicles to couple two non aligned rotating shafts, or with changing angular position one relative to another ; for example the steering axle and the steering gear, especially in the case of height-adjustable steering wheels.
The angle formed by the U-Joint’s « forks » causes a non linearity of the angular velocity of a shaft compared to the other.
This can be overcome by adding a second identical angle universal joint to the shaft ; in most cases, when all the shafts are at the same level, the two forks of the centre shaft are then aligned.
The transition from the input to the output shaft is made through two identical half angles, the angular variations caused by each of the U-joints being equal and opposite.

The simple universal joint actually has a major downside : it is not homokinetic, which means that the transmitted rotation speed is not constant when the axles are no longer aligned.
The assembly made of two U-joints, however, is homokinetic if the two forks of the intermediate part are at the same level. Otherwise, input and output speeds will be constant (and not sinusoidal when there is a simple U-joint) but different.

In locomotives and cars, the transmission’s characteristics depend on time, speed, length, lead angle, models, moments and flanges

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