Automobile Engineering | Explain with neat sketch working of differential.

Working of Differential:

Figure: Differential 

1. When vehicle moves in a straight line:

• The power comes from propeller shaft to the bevel pinion which drives the crown wheel. 
• Then it is carried to the differential cage in which a set of planet pinions and sun gears are located. From the sun gear it is transmitted to the road wheels through axle half shafts. 
• In this case, the crown wheel, differential cage, planet pinions and sun gears all turn as a single unit and there is no any relative motion between the sun gear and planet pinion. 
• The planet pinions do not rotate about their own axis. 
• The road wheels, half shafts and sun wheels offer the same resistance to being turned and the differential gearing does not therefore operate. Both the road wheels turn at the same speed 

2. When Vehicle takes a turn:

The inner wheel experiences a resistance and tends to rotate in opposite direction. Due to this the planet pinions starts rotating about their own axis and around the sun gear and transmit more rotary motion to the outer side sun gear. So that outer sun gear rotates faster than the inner sun gear. Therefore the outer road wheel runs faster than the inner road wheel and covers a more distance to negotiate a turn safely.