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).
Various car gear problems and proposing an improved epicyclic gear design.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\U\2January1930-September1930\ Scan090 | |
| Date | 29th April 1930 | |
| DA{Bernard Day - Chassis Design}/HDY.{William Hardy} E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer}) FROM R.{Sir Henry Royce} DY.{F R Danby} HS.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} ) (At Le CanadelHenry Royce's French residence.) Copy to - SG.{Arthur F. Sidgreaves - MD} WOR.{Arthur Wormald - General Works Manager} CAR WORK - GEAR PROBLEM. R1/M29.4.30. Y5310 X7310 X523 I must first thank Messrs Day and Hardy for their investigations and suggestions. They are sound, and contribute towards obtaining something worthy of RR. From all I can learn and judge - see remarks of ES. DA.{Bernard Day - Chassis Design} HDY.{William Hardy} etc, - there is nothing sufficiently good to be worth adopting with any hope of it giving lasting satisfaction, and suitable for say sending abroad. We have examined:- Synchro-mesh. ) Spool type. ) and our technical and expert drivers Freewheel. ) staff give information which is not Wilson gear. ) entirely satisfactory. The Wilson gear seems to be an improvement on Lanchester's gear and retains some of the difficulties of that gear, but is the only one known in the world that fulfils the requirements. When you come to high engine torque the gear becomes too heavy, and it has other defects which we can avoid with the work we have already done, such as the silence idling, extremely high torque that the brakes are subject to. These brakes are in oil which makes them less satisfactory. I want the difference in Wilson/Lanchester type, and what we are proposing, to be understood, and how it simplifies the situation. We retain the standard clutch so that all getting away is done by the slipping of this, which is now universally preferred with large dry surfaces, so this is already well tested. My scheme is to have the 1st. and reverse positive, so that we avoid having to provide brakes for the gear subject to 2 and 4 times engine torque. This so reduces our problem of providing brakes for 5 and 1 engine torque, and has been a feature of all my proposals. From all we have learnt the epicyclic gear is the most promising. Messrs Day and Hardy's memo. gives sufficient promise that the accelerated gear that I have suggested will be worth making a design for if we can find a satisfactory way of operating it, that is, the gear itself seems extremely good in several combinations. I had noticed the difficulty with 3 pinion driven trains of getting the 3rd. as high as we might wish, and examined most of the alternatives, but I rather concluded that with an easily available 3rd. we ought to have the top gear say 10% higher, and the drop rather greater than the present box, so that 74/100 x 100/110 = .67 - about what we should get with 3 trains of .3. (1) | ||