Mechanical Drive Maintenance

Course Number: 841

This course covers alignment, particularly coupling alignment. It includes installation and maintenance of mechanical drives, from chain drives to enclosed gear drives.

Recommended Contact Hours - 8

Chapter 1: Chain Drives

Topics: Installing and aligning shafts; Mounting the drive sprockets and chain; Test running; Lubrication; PM; Chain storage; Troubleshooting; Safety

Learning Objectives:

• List four types of chain drives.
• Describe the procedure for aligning the driving and driven shafts.
• Distinguish between bored sprockets and bushed sprockets and tell how each is mounted.
• Tell how a drive chain is mounted on the sprockets.
• List four methods of lubrication for chain drives.
• Explain both no-load and full-load test running procedures.
• Describe the causes of fatigue breaks, tensile breaks, rapid chain wear, roller wear, and side plate spreading.

Chapter 2: Belt Drives

Topics: Installing and aligning drives; Mounting sheaves and pulleys; Installing and adjusting V-belts; Idler sheaves; Flat, positive belt drives; Maintenance

Learning Objectives:

• List the three general types of belt drive and explain how they work.
• Tell how sheaves and pulleys are mounted and aligned on their shafts.
• Explain why all the belts in a multi-belt drive must be replaced at the same time.
• Describe two ways of taking up slack in a stretched V-belt.
• List three ways of splicing the ends of a flat belt together.
• Differentiate between the way positive-drive belts and other types of belt transmit power.

Chapter 3: Open Gear Devices

Topics: Aligning and preparing shafts; Handling and mounting gears; Lubricating open gearing; Preventive maintenance; Troubleshooting; Safety

Learning Objectives:

• Explain why open gearing requires special provisions for feeding lubricating oil to its parts.
• Describe how to align parallel shafts, intersecting right-angle shafts, and nonintersecting right-angle shafts.
• Describe the procedure for aligning worm gearing.
• List some of the problems a visual inspection of gearing can uncover.
• Describe the appearance and causes of wear, abrasion, corrosion, scoring, pitting, spalling, cold flowing, fatigue breaks, and cracked rims and webs.

Chapter 4: Enclosed Gear Drives

Topics: Preparing the foundation; Installation; Lubrication; Test running; PM; Troubleshooting

Learning Objectives:

• Tell how an enclosed gear drive should be mounted on the floor.
• Tell how an enclosed gear drive should be mounted on the framework of a driven machine.
• Describe the two methods of lubrication used in enclosed gear drives.
• Explain what should be done during the initial run-in, the one-week check, and the thirty-day check.
• List four steps you should take to protect an enclosed gear drive that is to be put into storage.
• Identify typical nameplate data.

Chapter 5: Drive Couplings

Topics: Installing and aligning shaft couplings; Expansion allowance; Lubrication; No-load testing; Installing universal joints; PM

Learning Objectives:

• List three purposes of a coupling.
• List the three basic types of coupling.
• Explain how to check both the angular and the parallel alignment of shafts.
• Tell how a dial indicator is used in precision coupling alignment.
• Calculate shim thickness required to align couplings in an angular plane.
• Distinguish between couplings that need lubrication and those that do not.
• Describe how shaft couplings, spacer couplings, floating shaft couplings, and universal joints are installed.