What
- Engineered a multispeed gearbox for a rotavator, overcoming the limits of conventional single-speed units that need manual gear changes and disassembly.
- Developed a lever-operated system for rapid gear shifting without risk of soil contamination or lubricant spillage.
- Designed for compatibility with a standard Power Take-Off (PTO) shaft running at 540 rpm.
How
- Selected a sliding gear mechanism through a weighted decision matrix, prioritising operational simplicity, manufacturing scalability and low production cost over synchromesh or constant mesh systems.
- Optimised gear engagement by filleting the spur gear teeth, giving smooth meshing between the drive and driven shafts.
- Ran Finite Element Analysis in Ansys, using Static Structural and Explicit Dynamics studies on the S275N steel components at operating torques of 119 to 145 Nm.
Results
- Delivered a lever-shifted multispeed design that removes the need to strip the gearbox for a speed change.
- Validated the structural integrity of the gearbox components under the full operating torque range in both static and dynamic analysis.
Tools and processes: CAD modelling, weighted decision matrix, Ansys Static Structural, Ansys Explicit Dynamics, S275N structural steel