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).
Challenges and proposed improvements for a gearbox testing rig to better isolate and observe noises.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 74\4\ scan0123 | |
| Date | 9th September 1911 guessed | |
| -2- 157 success with this yet; the rig is all right for just running in the boxes, but in order to observe their troubles it is necessary to take them off and put them on the old rig owing to the noise caused by the driving mechanism. The two boxes and double chain drive are mounted on the same bed with the result that the noises due to the gear boxes cannot be separated from those of the driving chains etc. I think we shall also have difficulty in observing the noises of each box apart from that of the other, owing to the fact that they are mounted close together. The differentially driven friction clutch should be capable of being thrown out of engagement for convenience of handling the rig. At present, when the machine is stopped the whole system (including the boxes) is under a stress and the gears cannot be taken out of mesh; this stress cannot be relieved without reversing the machine and it is found in practice to be very difficult to judge just how far this reversal should be carried with the result that it is generally overdone and the reversed stress imposed. If the clutch can be thrown out by hand this will be a convenient means of varying the load on the gears, an advantage which may be found useful. I think we should combine in the scheme either a considerable flywheel effect so that the boxes can be started up and stopped slowly or a variable speed drive because in most cases it is far easier to observe a noise when that noise is changing either in pitch or intensity; it is by comparing the noises which occur in succession that the causes can be fathomed. The hand controlled clutch should also prove useful for this purpose. The works are persevering in the use of this machine but it cannot be called satisfactory; the | ||