12. Areas of application and use

The market for universal joint drives is much broader than that of the solo universal joint; in competition with hydraulics and electricity, however, it encompasses all activities where a simple power chain is required, with certain peculiarities peculiar to each of them; we'll mention a few typical applications from time to time.

• Mining, steel, chemical, textile, food processing and general mechanical industries

  For rolling mill drives, cardan joints can have an overall diameter of over 1 m. In the food industry, special materials are required. In machine tools, cardan joint transmissions are disappearing in favor of direct drive by stepper motors.

• Agriculture

  For standardization reasons, all the jaws used (generally made of cast...