Universal joint

A universal joint (universal coupling, U-joint, Cardan joint, Spicer or Hardy Spicer joint, or Hooke's joint) is a joint or coupling in a rigid rod that allows the rod to "bend" in any direction, and is commonly used in shafts that transmit rotary motion. It consists of a pair of hinges located close together, oriented at 90° to each other, connected by a cross shaft. The universal joint is not a constant-velocity joint.

The main concept of the universal joint is based on the design of gimbals, which have been in use since antiquity. One anticipation of the universal joint was its use by the ancient Greeks on ballistae. In Europe the universal joint is often called the Cardano joint or Cardan shaft, after the Italian mathematician Gerolamo Cardano; however, in his writings, he mentioned only gimbal mountings, not universal joints.

The mechanism was later described in Technica curiosa sive mirabilia artis (1664) by Gaspar Schott, who mistakenly claimed that it was a constant-velocity joint. Shortly afterwards, between 1667 and 1675, Robert Hooke analysed the joint and found that its speed of rotation was nonuniform, but that this property could be used to track the motion of the shadow on the face of a sundial. In fact, the component of the equation of time which accounts for the tilt of the equatorial plane relative to the ecliptic is entirely analogous to the mathematical description of the universal joint. The first recorded use of the term universal joint for this device was by Hooke in 1676, in his book Helioscopes. He published a description in 1678, resulting in the use of the term Hooke's joint in the English-speaking world. In 1683, Hooke proposed a solution to the nonuniform rotary speed of the universal joint: a pair of Hooke's joints 90° out of phase at either end of an intermediate shaft, an arrangement that is now known as a type of constant-velocity joint.Christopher Polhem of Sweden later re-invented the universal joint, giving rise to the name Polhemsknut in Swedish.

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