AERONAUTICS: Scrapping the Cogwheel

Untold power was harnessed, in defiance of hitherto known mechanical principles, by a new gear mechanism, invented by George Morrison Smith, an Australian residing in Pittsburgh, and demonstrated at the Carnegie Institute of Technology.

The gear is a section of cased shafting, turned by a 5-horsepower motor. The driving end was speeded up to 17,000 revolutions per minute, while the other end of the shaft was making only five revolutions an hour. It has lifted 12 tons and has not reached its limit. The gear has no cogwheels nor even teeth, but turns on ball bearings between rollers of various diameters, slightly off center. The difference in diameters establishes the rate of reduction in speed and increase of power.

The new principle will make possible the elimination of complicated gear trains in automobiles, elevators, air compressors, belt conveyors, spinning and weaving, metal shearing and punching machines, and all others where the main shafting or drive is run at a high rate of speed.