Mediaspace scheduled maintenance: Aug 25, 2026 07:00 - 12:00 AM. During this time, videos will be temporarily unavailable. Check status updates.

Lecture

Da Vinci's Gearbox Experiment

In course

ME-314: Concurrent engineering project

L'étudiant apprend à appliquer les compétences acquises en travaillant dans une équipe responsable d'une portion d'un projet plus vaste. ...

Description

This lecture presents a Da Vinci-inspired design challenge focusing on a thought experiment from the Codex Atlanticus involving a gearbox that multiplies rotational speed. The team aimed to stay true to Da Vinci's sketch by building a wooden machine, studying forces, moments, and heat analysis. Despite reaching impressive results, the gearbox ultimately failed due to torque.

Official source

Related concepts (6)

Rotation around a fixed axis

Rotation around a fixed axis or axial rotation is a special case of rotational motion around a axis of rotation fixed, stationary, or static in three-dimensional space. This type of motion excludes the possibility of the instantaneous axis of rotation changing its orientation and cannot describe such phenomena as wobbling or precession. According to Euler's rotation theorem, simultaneous rotation along a number of stationary axes at the same time is impossible; if two rotations are forced at the same time, a new axis of rotation will result.

Transmission (mechanical device)

A transmission (also called a gearbox) is a mechanical device which uses gears to change the speed or direction of rotation in a machine. Many transmissions have multiple gear ratios, but there are also transmissions that use a single fixed gear ratio. Most currently-produced passenger cars with petrol or diesel engines use transmissions with 5-8 forward gear ratios and one reverse gear ratio. Electric vehicles typically use a single-speed or two-speed transmission.

Force

In physics, a force is an influence that can cause an object to change its velocity, i.e., to accelerate, unless counterbalanced by other forces. The concept of force makes the everyday notion of pushing or pulling mathematically precise. Because the magnitude and direction of a force are both important, force is a vector quantity. It is measured in the SI unit of newton (N) and often represented by the symbol F.

Rotation

Rotation or rotational motion is the circular movement of an object around a central line, known as axis of rotation. A plane figure can rotate in either a clockwise or counterclockwise sense around a perpendicular axis intersecting anywhere inside or outside the figure at a center of rotation. A solid figure has an infinite number of possible axes and angles of rotation, including chaotic rotation (between arbitrary orientations), in contrast to rotation around a axis.

Revolutions per minute

Revolutions per minute (abbreviated rpm, RPM, rev/min, r/min, or r⋅min−1) is a unit of rotational speed (or rotational frequency) for rotating machines. ISO 80000-3:2019 defines a physical quantity called rotation (or number of revolutions), dimensionless, whose instantaneous rate of change is called rotational frequency (or rate of rotation), with units of reciprocal seconds (s−1). A related but distinct quantity for describing rotation is angular frequency (or angular speed, the magnitude of angular velocity), for which the SI unit is the radian per second (rad/s).

Related lectures (10)

Circular Motion and Harmonic Oscillator

Explores circular motion, harmonic oscillators, and double springs, elucidating the physics principles behind them.

Mechatronics: Robotics and Components

Covers the fundamentals of mechatronics, focusing on actuation, torques, gear transmissions, and robotics.

Robotics: Actuation and Mobility Analysis

Covers corrected exercises from the 2020 exam in the field of robotics, including topics such as accuracy, speed, DC motors, optimal gear ratio, dynamics of robot arms, encoders, and kinematics.

Mechanical Power Transmission: Gears and Couplings

Provides an overview of mechanical power transmission principles, focusing on gears and couplings in engineering applications.

Da Vinci's Gearbox Experiment Log in to Mediaspace to watch this video