Slip-on differential opens up new roads

2024 Author: Erin Ralphs | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-19 11:41

From the very beginning of the history of the car, its developers faced one difficult task - how to ensure its uniform movement in a turn or on rough roads. The fact is that when turning the car, the inner and outer wheels move along a circle of different radii, travel a different path and have different speeds. To eliminate this, a device such as a differential was introduced into the design of the car. However, he revealed his shortcomings, and it was them that the self-locking differential had to eliminate.

To understand the problem that arises, you will have to turn to the differential device. Without going into its subtleties, we can simply state that this mechanism allows the wheels of the car located on the same axis to rotate at different speeds. The result of this technical solution was to reduce the load on the wheels, transmission, improve vehicle handling andimproving the reliability and safety of the vehicle.

However, as always happens in such cases, a new problem has appeared. The ability of the wheels to move at different speeds turned into another extreme. When one wheel hits a slippery place (mud, ice, rolling), all the torque from the engine goes to this wheel, and it starts to rotate at an increased speed, while the other wheel on this axle remains stationary. The car will slip, only one wheel is spinning, but due to the lack of traction, it cannot move the car. The other wheel is stationary. To get out of this situation, we developed a self-locking differential.

Its distinguishing feature is to block the possibility of wheels located on the same axis to rotate at different speeds. In practice, this means that when the lock is turned on, the speed of rotation of the wheels is the same, and if one of them starts to slip, then the torque continues to flow to the other wheel, and the car can easily overcome a difficult section of the road due to this. Such blocking can be performed in different ways - manually or automatically, which implements the self-locking differential.

Such blocking has a positive effect on the car, its cross-country ability

increases on heavy and slippery roads, in mud and snow. This is especially true for cars whose engine develops a small torque. Yes, installedself-locking differential on the Niva significantly increases its patency. Of course, if there is a normal "mud" rubber. A similar differential can be installed on any axle of the car, including all at once. True, it should be noted that when it is installed on the front axle, the handling deteriorates somewhat, and it is better for an experienced driver to drive a car.

Usually such a differential is built into the design of the existing one, most often the rear one. However, if the engine is capable of developing significant torque, then damage to the axle shafts is possible. UAZ self-locking differential can cause just such damage. This requires a certain amount of driving skill from the driver, but its application provides tangible benefits when driving on bad roads. Most military vehicles are equipped with such devices.

The self-locking differential provides an excellent opportunity to increase the ability of the car to overcome difficult driving conditions, while at the same time not requiring major structural changes to the design of the car, and is also affordable. The effectiveness of such devices is well known, and it is not for nothing that most military vehicles are equipped with them by default.