3. Transmission technology

3.1 Belt tensioning

Belt installation tension is a very important factor in ensuring long belt life: if tension is too low, belt teeth may jump, particularly at start-up or when torque variations are high; if tension is too high, internal stresses become too great, as do reactions on bearings. Excessive tension also causes noise and wear on belt teeth and pulleys.

In practice, the following is recommended for a two-pulley transmission.

When installing the belt and for optimum drive operation, the sum of the tensions in the two belt strands must be equal to the maximum permissible force T _a for the given width (table 5 ), plus the centrifugal...