Seal (mechanical)

A mechanical seal is a device which helps join systems or mechanisms together by preventing leakage (e.g., in a plumbing system), containing pressure, or excluding contamination.

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Rope

A rope is a length of fibers, twisted or braided together to improve strength for pulling and connecting. It has tensile strength but is too flexible to provide compressive strength (i.e., it can be used for pulling, not pushing). Rope is thicker and stronger than similarly constructed cord, line, string, or twine. Common materials for rope include natural fibers such as Manila hemp, hemp, linen, cotton, coir, jute, and sisal. Synthetic fibers in use for rope-making include polypropylene, nylon, polyesters (e.g. PET, Vectran), polyethylene (e.g. Spectra) and Aramids (e.g. Twaron, Technora and Kevlar). Some ropes are constructed of mixtures of several fibres or use co-polymer fibres. Ropes can also be made out of metal fibers. Ropes have been constructed of other fibrous materials such as silk, wool, and hair, but such ropes are not generally available. Rayon is a regenerated fiber used to make decorative rope.

Rope is of paramount importance in fields as diverse as construction, seafaring, exploration, sports and communications and has been since prehistoric times. In order to fasten rope, a large number of knots have been invented for various uses. Pulleys are used to redirect the pulling force to another direction, and may be used to create mechanical advantage, allowing multiple strands of rope to share a load and multiply the force applied to the end. Winches and capstans are machines designed to pull ropes.

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Roller chain

Roller chain or bush roller chain is the type of chain most commonly used for transmission of mechanical power on bicycles, motorcycles, and in industrial and agricultural machinery. It is simple, reliable, and efficient, but requires more attention to maintain than may be desired by potential owners. There has, therefore, been of late a tendency towards the use of other modes of power transmission such as the cog, or timing belt.

Though Hans Renold is credited with inventing roller chain in 1880, sketches by Leonardo da Vinci in the 16th century show a chain with a roller bearing.

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Rack and pinion

A rack and pinion is a pair of gears which convert rotational motion into linear motion. The circular pinion engages teeth on a flat bar - the rack. Rotational motion applied to the pinion will cause the rack to move to the side, up to the limit of its travel.

For example, in a rack railway, the rotation of a pinion mounted on a locomotive or a railcar engages a rack between the rails and pulls a train along a steep slope.

The rack and pinion arrangement is commonly found in the steering mechanism of cars or other wheeled, steered vehicles. This arrangement provides a lesser mechanical advantage than other mechanisms such as recirculating ball, but much less backlash and greater feedback, or steering “feel”. The use of a variable rack was invented by Arthur E Bishop, so as to improve vehicle response and steering “feel” on-centre, and that has been fitted to many new vehicles, after he created a hot forging process to manufacture the racks, thus eliminating any subsequent need to machine the form of the gear teeth.
For every pair of conjugate involute profile, there is a basic rack. This basic rack is the profile of the conjugate gear of infinite pitch radius.

A generating rack is a rack outline used to indicate tooth details and dimensions for the design of a generating tool, such as a hob or a gear shaper cutter.

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Chain

A chain is a series of connected links. This article is about the literal, physical chain. A chain may consist of two or more links.

A chain is usually made of metal.

Chains are usually made in one of two styles, according to their intended use:

* Those designed for lifting, such as when used with a hoist; for pulling; or for securing, such as with a bicycle lock, have links that are torus shaped, which makes the chain flexible in two dimensions.

* Those designed for transferring power in machines have links designed to mesh with the teeth of the sprockets of the machine, and are flexible in only one dimension. They are known as Roller chains.

Chains can also be decorative as jewellery.

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Key (lock)

A key is a device which is used to open a lock. A typical key consist of two parts: the blade, which slides into the keyway of the lock and distinguishes between different keys, and the bow, which is left protruding so that torque can be applied by the user. The blade is usually designed to open one specific lock, although master keys are designed to open sets of similar locks.

Keys provide an inexpensive, though imperfect, method of authentication for access to properties like buildings and vehicles. As such, keys are an essential feature of modern living in the developed world, and are common around the globe. It is common for people to carry the set of keys they need for their daily activities around with them, often linked by a keyring adorned by key fobs and known as a keychain.

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Gear

Reduction gears on Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6 gas turbine engine.]] A gear is a component within a transmission device that transmits rotational force to another gear or device. A gear is different from a pulley in that a gear is a round wheel which has linkages (”teeth” or “cogs”) that mesh with other gear teeth, allowing force to be fully transferred without slippage. Depending on their construction and arrangement, geared devices can transmit forces at different speeds, torques, or in a different direction, from the power source. Gears are a very useful simple machine. The most common situation is for a gear to mesh with another gear, but a gear can mesh with any device having compatible teeth, such as linear moving racks. A gear’s most important feature is that gears of unequal sizes (diameters) can be combined to produce a mechanical advantage, so that the rotational speed and torque of the second gear are different from that of the first. In the context of a particular machine, the term “gear” also refers to one particular arrangement of gears among other arrangements (such as “first gear”). Such arrangements are often given as a ratio, using the number of teeth or gear diameter as units. The term “gear” is also used in non-geared devices which perform equivalent tasks:

“…broadly speaking, a gear refers to a ratio of engine shaft speed to driveshaft speed. Although CVTs change this ratio without using a set of planetary gears, they are still described as having low and high “gears” for the sake of convention

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Fastener

A fastener is a hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together.

Fasteners can also be used to close a container such as a bag, a box, or an envelope; or they may involve keeping together the sides of an opening of flexible material, attaching a lid to a container, etc. There are also special purpose closing devices, e.g. a bread clip. Fasteners used in these manners are often temporary, in that they may be fastened and unfastened repeatedly.

Some types of woodworking joints make use of separate internal reinforcements, such as dowels or biscuits, which in a sense can be considered fasteners within the scope of the joint system, although on their own they are not general purpose fasteners.

Furniture supplied in flat-pack form often uses cam dowels locked by cam locks, also known as conformat fasteners.

Items like a rope, string, wire (e.g. metal wire, possibly coated with plastic, or multiple parallel wires kept together by a plastic strip coating), cable, chain, or plastic wrap may be used to mechanically join objects; but are not generally categorized as fasteners because they have additional common uses. Likewise hinges and springs may join objects together, but are ordinarily not considered a fasteners because their primary purpose is to allow articulation rather than rigid affixment.

Other alternative methods of joining materials include crimping, welding, soldering, brazing, taping, gluing, cementing, or the use of other adhesives. The use of force may also be used, such as with magnets, vacuum (like suction cups), or even friction.

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Bucket (machine part)

A bucket (also called a scoop to qualify shallower designs of tools) is a specialized container attached to a machine, to the difference of a domesic bucket adapted to the physionomy of a human being. It is a bulk material handling component.

The bucket has an inner volume to the difference of other types of machine attachments like blades or shovels.

The bucket could be attached to the lifting hook of a crane, at the end of the arm of an excavating machine, to a the wires of a dragline excavator, to the arms of a power shovel or a tractor equipped with a backhoe loader or to a loader, or to a dredge.

The name bucket can have been coined from buckets used in water wheels, then in used in water turbines or in similar-looking devices.

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Belt (mechanical)

A Belt is a looped strip of flexible material, used to mechanically link two or more rotating shafts. They may be used as a source of motion, to efficiently transmit power, or to track relative movement.

Belts are looped over pulleys. In a two pulley system, the belt can either drive the pulleys in the same direction, or the belt may be crossed, so that the direction of the shafts is opposite.

As a source of motion, a conveyor belt is one application where the belt is adapted to continually carry a load between two points.

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