From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Description of a clutch, gearbox, and differential gear mechanism for vehicle steering and drive, referencing associated figures.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 147\4\ scan0199 | |
| Date | 15th May 1941 guessed | |
| air is then admitted to the cylinder 37 to engage the slipping clutch so that the shaft 41 is driven by the shaft 25 and drives one of the pinions 45 or 49 through the engaged cone clutch. This pinion, in turn, drives the shafts 27a and 27b in opposite directions so that one track is driven faster than the other as explained previously. It will be seen from Figure 2 that the pinion 45 will drive each of the shafts 27a and 27b in the opposite direction from that in which the pinion 49 will drive those shafts, so that the direction of the turn is selected by engaging the appropriate cone clutch. The radius of the turn is varied by varying the extent to which the slipping clutch slips so as to vary the speed of the shaft 41 and, thus, of the shafts 27a and 27b. The minimum radius is obtained when the slipping clutch is fully engaged and does not slip. The clutch and gear box shown in Figure 2 can also be incorporated in a driving gear of the controlled-differential type. The modification necessary to convert the epicyclic type gear shown in Figures 1 and 2 into a differential type gear are shown diagrammatically in Figure 3. In this type of gear the shafts 16a and 16b, which drive the sprockets as described with reference to Figure 1, are coupled together by a conventional differential gear 71 (Figure 3) of which the planet carrier 72 is driven by a gear 73 on the shaft 14. This shaft, as explained before, is driven by the engine through the main clutch 13 and gear box 15. The shaft 16a drives the shaft 27a through a gear train 74 having an even number of wheels while the shaft 16b drives 10. | ||