Everything You Need to Know About Helical Gearboxes

by Richerd Lawford With a prodigious experience of more than 25 YEARS

Industrial gearboxes are widely used in a variety of small-scale and large-scale industries and have diverse applications. As helical gearboxes' arrangement helps in diverse operations, they are far more effective than other types of gearboxes. Helical gears have teeth, which are oriented at an angle to the shaft.

The teeth orientation leads to multiple teeth getting in contact during the operation, which makes the gear strong enough to carry more load. The arrangement also helps helical gears to function quieter and easier than spur gears.

The Helical Gearbox's modular design and framework come with multiple performances and engineering benefits, including sub-assemblies and a high level of interchangeability of parts. Such benefits help in economical production and maintain the highest level of component integrity.

Helical gearboxes are mainly used on pieces of machinery where actions require work at higher speed ranges (hotel and catering industry pieces of machinery) or lower sound levels (air conditioning or automotive industries). They are also mostly used on machines that require high torque transmission along parallel axes.

Want to know the most important things about helical gearboxes? Here, you will get to learn everything about them. Keep reading.

What are the Different Types of Helical Gearboxes?

Helical gearboxes can be of two different types - gears transmitting power between parallel shafts and gears transmitting power between non-parallel shafts also called cross-axis gears. They are largely popular in small-scale and large-scale industries.

Here are the different types of helical gearboxes depending on their requirements for applications in various industries:

Single Helical Gear

Single helical gears are the gears at a specific angle to the axis. The key feature of this gear is that it gets more surface contact and loads carrying capacity. You can have the right and left-hand orientation of this gear.

Double Helical Gear

Double helical gears are a combination of various helical gears, in which two helical faces are positioned beside each other with a gap distinguishing them. Every face has the same but opposite helix angles.

Using a double helical set of gears reduces thrust loads and improves the chance of greater tooth overlap and easier operations. Double helical gears are widely used in enclosed gear drives like helical gear.

Herringbone Gear

Herringbone gears are the same as double helical gears. However, they don't have a gap separating the two helical faces. Herringbone gears are usually smaller, and are perfectly suited for high shock and vibration implementations. Herringbone gear is not used frequently because of its manufacturing complications and high cost.

Applications of Helical Gearboxes

Industrial gearboxes are of two types – spur and helical gearboxes. Both have very different features and abilities. You should choose the right gearbox depending on your requirement. Helical gearboxes are the right choice if you intend to control noise. The gear train in helical gearboxes functions at medium and high speeds to reduce noise.

Helical gearboxes are used widely across industries and are a popular type of gear because of the noise reduction it promotes. Helical gears are used to forward speeds in the automobile industry. You can notice the difference in the speed yourself.

You must have heard the sound that a manual transmission automobile makes when driven in reverse. The sound occurs because of the spur gears used for reverse action in an automobile. Helical gearboxes are used to forward movement and thus, the noise is considerably low.

Spur gears are a better choice as the requirement for thrust-carrying bearings is restricted if weight and space are restricted. Helical gearboxes are used in the textile, automotive, food, and plastic industries. They are also a crucial part of cutters, compressors, elevators, blowers, and conveyor belts. The excellent load-sharing capacity between the teeth of a helical gearbox has increased its adoption worldwide in heavily operated sectors, such as printing, fertilizer, and earthmoving industries.

The teeth are positioned at a specific angle to the axis in a single gearbox. As a consequence, the industrial gearbox's orientation may be left or right. Single helical gearboxes have big load capacities because of their design and orientation. They are used widely in high-load applications.

Double helical gearboxes have two helical surfaces positioned against each other. Both surfaces have the same teeth positioned at opposite angles. Such gearboxes offer high-loading capacity and consistent transmission. As a consequence, double helical gearboxes are widely used for transmitting power in gas turbines, fans, pumps, generators, and prime movers. They are also used in construction machines and marine ships.

Herringbone gearboxes look like double-helical gearboxes yet they are different as there is no gap distinguishing the two surfaces. Such gearboxes are smaller in size and can be used in applications related to high shock and vibration.

Why Should You Use Helical Gears?

The angled teeth engage slower than spur gear teeth so that they can operate more smoothly. Helical gears, and Helical Gearboxes, are highly durable and are perfect for high-load applications. Helical gears are capable of transmitting motion and power between parallel or right-angle shafts.

They are the most effective gearboxes manufactured in the industry and work at 98% efficiency after Planetary Gearboxes. The entire application of helical gears and helical gearboxes is worldwide. Helical Gearboxes are implemented in the industries below:

Fertilizer industries
Printing Industries
Earth-moving industries
Steel, and rolling mills
Power and port industries
Textile industries
Plastic Industries
Food industries
Conveyors
Elevators
Blowers
Compressors
Oil industries
Cutters

Besides the industries above, helical gears are also used in crushers, coolers, extruders, cranes, conveyors, and mixers, which are low-power applications.

The Takeaway

So, these are the things you should know about helical gearboxes. You can always get high-quality helical gearboxes at every phase of the manufacturing process to fulfill the best standards. Contact one of the leading industrial gearbox manufacturers with the cutting-edge manufacturing unit to get the desired product.

The in-house R&D facility can deliver power transmission solutions across industries. The team of experts can understand the requirements of customers and customize solutions suited to their precise needs.