Thread: Purely mechanical system to give a continuously variable gear ratio

Thank you all for your enlightening discussion.

However a lot (maybe most?) major advances in engineering start off as academic/theoretical "researchy stuff". sure, major advances require research. Most (nearly all) successful new products, however, are incremental improvements of existing ones, or simple expansions of a product line.  The researchy ones have to have a clear & substantial benefit ahead of the research to make the research worth...

( I recommend a long walk home from the pub before you get too excited, leastways that's when I realised my idea was wrong.   , )

( I would think that if you changed from 1:0 ratio to say 10,000:1 ratio, the torque would be extremely high and the speed extremely slow. The torque could indeed break things without any flex in the system, however all systems have some flex. If a drive shaft conecting the transmission to the wheels had some apropriately designed torsion bars built in, so long as the change from 1:0 to 1:1 or whatever was gradual enough the torsion bar would...

No, but the motor vehicle safety standards do.

( So, whose Nemesis are you, and what happened to the other three?   , )

The original post wanted to know about "infinitely variable positive drives".  By definition, such a device is probably not possible.  But let's take a look at what such a device might really imply: Even a very well designed gear or chain drive does not have perfect mechanical efficiency. And modern push belt or traction CVTs can have input-to-output efficiencies that are competitive with...

Nemisis4, Napier built an aircraft engine using a series of tapered discs as a variable ratio drive for the supercharger. The engine was either the Sabre or Nomad if I recall correctly. This may provide some leads. Pete.

Doh! I missed the reference to DAF even though I read the thread carefully. Sorry.  

Ivymike's suggestion sounds like a Zeromax to me. http ://www.zer o-max.com/ products/d rives/driv esmain.asp