Conveyor Engineering

Sprockets are used in the conveyor system to drive the chain. Conveyor sprockets typically have an odd number of teeth although sprockets with an even number have become more prevalent over the last thirty years. Most sprockets are made from fabricated steel and are parallel or taper keyed to a through shaft. Conveyor sprockets are also available in double pitch and shear pin varieties. Double pitch sprockets wear evenly and offer a longer service life than standard sprockets. Shear pin sprockets break when overloaded, stopping the conveyor and saving considerable expense and downtime.

Sprockets are used in bicycles, motorcycles, cars, tracked vehicles, and other machinery either to transmit rotary motion between two shafts where gears are unsuitable or to impart linear motion to a track, tape etc. Perhaps the most common form of sprocket may be found in the bicycle, in which the pedal shaft carries a large sprocket-wheel, which drives a chain, which, in turn, drives a small sprocket on the axle of the rear wheel. Early automobiles were also largely driven by sprocket and chain mechanism, a practice largely copied from bicycles.

Sprockets are of various designs, a maximum of efficiency being claimed for each by its originator. Sprockets typically do not have a flange. Some sprockets used with timing belts have flanges to keep the timing belt centered. Sprockets and chains are also used for power transmission from one shaft to another where slippage is not admissible, sprocket chains being used instead of belts or ropes and sprocket-wheels instead of pulleys. They can be run at high speed and some forms of chain are so constructed as to be noiseless even at high speed.