Tuesday, June 17, 2008

A Gyroscopic Joint


The Wolfram Demonstrations Project has several interesting flash depictions of mathematical phenomena, but they also have quite a few interesting abstractions of simple machines.
The gyroscopic joint is an interesting concept -- essentially a double-universal joint with the joints nested within one another. This clearly wouldn't be a very strong shaft coupling, but for certain low-torque applications where axial space is at a premium, where a large angular misalignment must be accomodated, and where a constant-velocity (homokinetic) joint is necessary, this concept might find a niche.


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