DESIGN AND ANALYSIS OF GEAR (RACK-PINION) JACK

AUTHOR:- ABEBE DEMISIE NSR/057/12

SENDEKU ASMARE NSR/ /12

ADVISER:- KIBROM

ARBA MINCH INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY (AMIT)

FACULTY OF MECHANICAL & PRODUCTION ENGINEERING

DEC
10/2022

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by Arba Minch University a thesis entitled: Design of Gear (rack-pinion) jack

, in fulfillment of the requirements for the Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical

Engineering of Arba Minch University.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Acknowledgement is not here because the thesis is have not finished

ABSTRACT

A Gear (rack-pinion) Jack is a mechanical device used for lifting heavy equipment. The
most important fact of a jack is that it gives the user a mechanical advantage by changing
the rotational force on gear into linear motion, allowing user to lift a heavy load to the
required height. The purpose of this project is to modify the design of the existing car
jack in terms of its functionality and also human factors considerations. In this project,
the scopes of research were on the designing 1.6-ton at 18cm lifting capacity of gear
(rack-pinion) jack by using optimization concept. To optimize the existing design, the
hand lifter has been replaced by the use of pedal lever as it can reduce energy usage. This
project is mainly focused on force acting on the gear lift (mechanical) when it is upward
and downward. Generally, Gear jack is used for lifting and holding heavy weight
components. Material selection plays a key role in designing a machine and also
influence on several factor such as durability, reliability, strength, resistance which
finally leads to increase the life of jack. The design is performed by considering hydraulic
scissor lift as a portable, compact and much suitable for medium type of load application.

Table of content

List of figure
Abbreviation

CHAPTER I

1. INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

A jack is a mechanical device which uses a screw thread or a hydraulic cylinder to lift
heavy loads or apply great linear forces. The most common forms of jacks available in
the market are Scissor car jacks, House jacks, Hydraulic jacks, Pneumatic jacks and
Strand jacks that are extensively used in Construction, Industrial, Automobile and
Engineering segments. In most of the powerful jacks, hydraulic power is used to provide
more lift over greater distances. Mechanical jacks usually have lifting capacity ranging
from 1.5 tons to 3 tons. Hydraulic jacks are mechanical devices used to lift heavy loads,
vehicles, weight equipment or apply great forces using hydraulic fluid as the main source
of power. These are widely used in automotive, industrial and construction industries.
These are sturdy in construction, compact in size, portable and capable of exerting great
forces. It consists of two cylinders of different sizes which are connected together by a
pipe and a hydraulic fluid or oil. The hydraulic fluid is incompressible and using a pump
plunger is forced into the cylinder of the jack. Oil is used because of its stable and self-
lubricating nature. When the plunger pulls back, oil is drawn out of the reservoir and it
goes inside the pump chamber. When the plunger moves forward, the oil is pushed back
into the cylinder. This oil movement builds up pressure in the cylinder. And it is this
pressure which leads to the working of the hydraulic jack. It also finds usage in
workshops and also lifts elevators in low and medium rise buildings. These can be
segmented into two types: Bottle Hydraulic Jack and Floor Hydraulic Jack. Bottles are
portable in design; in these the piston is in a vertical position and it supports a bearing
pad which touches the object being lifted. Bottle Hydraulic are most appropriate for
lifting vehicles (cars, trucks, SUVs, trailers), houses and other heavy objects. In a Floor
Jacks, the piston is in a horizontal piston and there is a long arm which provides the
vertical motion to a lifting pad. There are wheels and castors in floor jacks. The working
principle of all hydraulic jacks is15 Common but these differ in their shapes and sizes.
Hydraulic jacks with varied sizes and specifications are used to lift different types of
heavy equipment and vehicles such as bulldozers, forklifts, elevators, trolleys & trailers
and excavators. These can also be found in household equipment’s as well like door
stoppers, cars, bikes etc. Hydraulic Jacks are high in demand across the globe owing to
their sturdy construction, reliable& hassle free operation, unparalleled performance, user-
friendly design and less maintenance.

Lifting jacks are a basic tool of industry and are especially common in automotive
applications.
Lifting a car with its stock lifting jack to change a tire is the most common application.
Other
Uses include:-
• Raising and leveling steel girders on their footings or vertical columns
• Leveling and positioning heavy machinery in a machine shop or manufacturing
facility
• Lifting and positioning heavy pieces of metal stock or other material
There are multitudes of uses where heavy objects have to be raised using some basic
mechanic

Principle such as hydraulic, pneumatic, inclined plane or mechanical screw. This is where
long distance acting on a light force translates into lifting up a heavy force up a short
distance.

1.1.1 Types of jacks

There are many different types of lifting jacks including bottle jacks, floor jacks, ratchet
jacks, scissor jacks, screw jacks, transmission jacks and others.

Bottle Jacks

Easy to use hydraulic jacks mean effortless lifting of heavy machinery and equipment,
high enough to slide a set of Hillman Rollers underneath to move it wherever you want to
go. These are simple hydraulic lever jacks that use a mechanical advantage of high-
pressure small diameter piston, or the master, pumping fluid into a large diameter
piston’s chamber or the slave cylinder. The two are mounted next to each other on the
base. The master is usually pumped up and down by a simple lever that often doubles as
the wrench that operates the release valve. They have a simple round saddle on top and a
rectangular cast iron base. They are used mainly for vehicles but they have many
applications otherwise, being so simple and small. The main disadvantage is that they
must be used standing upright, not on its side or the pumping action won’t work
correctly.

House Jacks

House jacks, as per its name, are super heavy-duty jacks that are used to raise or stabilize
a whole house or heavy beams. They usually employ the screw or bottle jack lifting
principle and can be provided with or without thrust bearings.

Inflatable Jacks

These are air powered jacks that are run off of a shop compressed air system. They have
the advantage of a very low minimum height and high lifting capacity. Disadvantages
include being more prone to air leakage and thus have to have a safety system built in to
prevent rapid unwanted lowering due to bag failure.

Screw Jacks

Once 5-ton worm gear machine screw jacks lift and precisely position loads. Upright or
inverted, these jacks operate at full capacity in tension or compression and are available
in Translating, Keyed for non-rotation and KFTN designs. This is a very common and
simple sort of jack. It operates under the principle of using the mechanical advantage of
the basic screw thread to convert the rotary motion of the wrench or lever into the linear
motion of the top of the jack. The mechanical advantage is directly related to the pitch of
the screw. Most refrigerators and free standing stoves have simple screw jacks as the
floor pads of the unit. The user can easily level the unit off by using a simple open-end
wrench. More complicated versions of screw jacks are found in machine shops to level
out heavy machine tools. Often a locator hole is drilled in the floor or table to keep the
jack’s bottom in position and from slipping. More advanced versions have ball bearings
between the screw and its tapped hole to reduce friction.

Service or Floor Jacks

These are the workhorses of the vehicle repair world, noted and prized for their safety,
strength, convenience and capacity. They work on a similar principle as a bottle jack, but
they are mounted on 4 or 6 wheeled carriages that have swivel castors in the rear and
fixed cast wheels in the front. They have a large round saddle that can be removed easily
and replaced with different sizes or custom saddles and shoes. The pump lever is also the
way you pull and move the jack around. The lever also acts as its release valve actuator
by rotating the handle. Floor jacks have a low initial clearance so they can get under a
low car then safely jack it up.

Transmission Jacks

These are specialty jacks used to raise and lower a vehicle’s transmission from the
bottom of the vehicle. They are similar to a floor jack but have a large cradle with tie
downs to secure the transmission and a way to tilt the transmission cradle so it can match
the angle of the engine it will be bolted to. This allows the mechanic to raises the
transmission into place for securing to the engine.

Wheel and Shop Bumper Jacks

These are large roll around floor jacks that can lift a whole vehicle up by the front or the
rear by cradling the wheels or pushing up on the front of the frame. They have a floor
carriage and a large vertical gantry that holds the piston. They are usually hydraulic
powered and are popular in small repair shops where a built-in lift is too expensive.

Scissor Jacks
These are simple jacks that have four linked vertical arms. Between each of the two pairs
of vertical arms there is a female threaded piece where the jack’s screw goes through.
The jack is raised or lowered by rotating the operating screw. These are usually found in
a car trunk as a tire changing tool due to its compact size. Scissor jacks provide by
automobile manufacturers generally have a shoe to mate to a lifting point in the vehicle’s
frame, while the universal aftermarket versions have a generic saddle instead The car
jack in our project is generally termed as Scissor Jack because of its shape which is much
like scissors.

Gear (rack-pinion) jack

The ratchet and pawl mechanism that cause a rotary gear to move up or down a linear
track. The ratchet pawls keep the gear from slipping back down under load and causing
the jack to fail. The old traditional bumper jack in older American cars was a ratchet style
jack. But they are not very safe and are heavy. So, for those reasons they have been
superseded by scissor jacks as standard equipment on most vehicles. They are still used
in industry for lifting lighter pieces.

Simply rotating by the lever the jack is move up and down this leads to lift the object,
when the operator want to lower the jack shaft they will rotate anti clockwise.

The speed it descends depends on how powerful the jack is and how much weight the
platform is carrying. If you expect to lift heavy materials, you should consider a more
powerful gear. For example, heavyweight makes it difficult.

1.2 Statement of the problem

Nowadays in this country, most of the garages were equipped with the gear jack. We
found that the gear jack was very difficult to be used because this type of jack needed
more strength and energy to operate this jack by mechanical. Thus, we want to develop a
product based from the problem faced by the users who lift a heavy object regarding to
this issue. To overcome this problem, a research has been conducted to find the solution
on how to design a gear (rack-pinion jack) for the heavy lift purpose using the simplest
and cheapest way while it is energy saved. Gear jack present difficulties for the elderly,
women and are especially. Disadvantageous under adverse weather conditions.
Furthermore, require the operator to remain in prolonged bent or squatting position to
operate the jack. Doing work in a bent or squatting position for a period of time is not
ergonomic to human body. It will give back problem in due of time. This is for the safety
precaution in case if the screw broke. Furthermore, available jacks are typically large,
heavy and also difficult to store, transport, carry or move into the proper position under
an automobile. Suppose car jacks must be easy to use for pregnant women or whoever
have problem with the tire in the middle of nowhere. The purpose of this project is to
encounter these problems.

1.3 Objectives

1.3.1 General objective

To design each and every part of a hydraulic scissor jack which is safe and reliable to
raise and

lower the load easily.

1.3.2 Specific objective

The general objective of our project is to design the hydraulic scissors jack to lift up
to a height

of 200mm and with the carrying capacity of 18 tones. Calculations of the inner
stresses must be done and a

3D model must be created. It is also necessary to choose the material.

1.4 Scope and Limitation

1.4.1 Scope
The present study is aimed at analysis and working of gear (rack-pinion) jack. We are
currently working on small gear jack model but in future it can be used for heavy duty
vehicles by making changes and also we are trying to make a gear jack for heavy
construction that have above 1.6ton lifting capacity.

1.4.2 Limitation

Gear jacks are relatively slow to operate, you may have to spend a little more time raising &
lowering in order to get the desired result. The other limitation is that they are somewhat
lightweight & are not recommended to be used on extra heavy object.

CHAPTER TWO

2. LITERATURE REVIEW

As an introduction this literature review man purpose is to get information about the
project

from the requirement books, magazines, journals, technical papers and websites in this

chapter the whole description will be making based on all the sources

Rack-pinion jack

A rack-pinion jack is a device which lifts heavy equipment. The most common form is a
car jack,

floor jack house jack or garage jack which lifts vehicles so that maintenance can be
performed. Car jack as usually use mechanical advantages to allow a human to lift
vehicle

more power lift jacks use hydraulic power to provide more lift over greater lifting higher

mechanical jack are usually rated for a maximum lifting capacity

2.2 RELATED WORKS

Wubshet Yimer, et al made a conclusion in this paper that the design and fabrication of a

portable work platform of the lift which is elevated by one hydraulic cylinder were
carried out

effectively and meeting the necessary design criteria. The double type of scissors lift is
elevated

by one hydraulic cylinder and it is operated by the foot pedal. This scissor lift is design
for

average load purposes, because the higher the load more the effort required for raising the
load

from ground level. The hydraulic scissor lift is easy to use and does not require
continuous

repairs and maintenance. It can also lift heavier loads. For the given dimensions of the
scissor lift
can raise a load up to 280 kg up to the height of 1000mm. Hence, its extensive
application in

industries, hydraulic pressure system, for the lifting of a vehicle in garages, maintenance
of huge

machines, and for staking purpose.

Gaffar G Momin, et al found that design as well as analysis of a hydraulic scissor lift.

Conventionally a scissor lift or jack is employed for lifting a vehicle to change a tire, to
gain

access to travel to the underside of the vehicle, to lift the body of the vehicle to
appropriate

height, and lots of other applications also such lifts can be used for various purposes like

maintenance and many material handling operations. The lift can be of mechanical,
pneumatic,

or hydraulic type. The design of the lift described within the paper is developed in such a
way that the lift is operated by mechanically means by using a pantograph such that the
overall cost

of the scissor lift is reduced to some extent. In our case, we required the lift is portable
and also
works without consuming any electric power source so they decided to use a hydraulic
hand

pump to power the hydraulic cylinder Also a such design can make the lift more compact
and

much suitable for medium scale work. Finally, the analysis of the scissor lift was done in
ANSYS

and also all responsible parameters were analyzed to check the design of the lift.

N. Pandit, et al studied the design, analysis, and safety requirements of the scissor lift. It
is a

versatile material handling equipment that can use hydraulic, pneumatic, or mechanical
energy as

input for its working. For designing, forces can be calculated by considering the
equilibrium of

the system at both the positions, closed and open. The various attachments can be added
to the

equipment which ensures the safety of the worker operating it and gives the guidelines
for

handling the unit.

Uttam Panwar, et al stated that operating mechanism and study of hydraulic lift. This
research

paper solves material handling and provides comfort to the operator. This paper shows
the study

and also the design of hydraulic scissor lift components. It can lift up 300kg of load with
a raise

of 3.5ft. The main aim of this research paper is to study the hydraulic scissor lift also
design and

fabrication of hydraulic scissor lift. In this case, lift has to be movable and portable so
rollers or

wheels are provided for motion at the bottom side of the lift and also, we can’t use
electric power

in this lift so they use a hydraulic pump. Hydraulic generate more and accurate pressure.
By use

of this mechanism and design hydraulic lift became more efficient and can operate in
industries.

The purpose of this research is to use all components effectively gives good results.

CHAPTER 3

Material and methdology

3.1 MATERIAL

Selection of the material is most important factor for designing the system which depends
on a

component and tasks that the component performs. Different parts of the mechanism take

different load and stress because they carry out different functions. Individual approach is

necessary to select a material for every part. The detailed study impacts on total
efficiency and

benefits from it help to decide best properties which can give different materials. Thus,
main

parts of the design are allocated and features of each and every part are explained
separately.

The selection of the materials is done according to their mechanical properties (Strength,

stiffness, elasticity, hardness and toughness) based on the particular working conditions.

The main interest is made by the Scissor arms of the lift, the greatest part of the loading is
shared

between them and they are a basic element of the assembly. This part is subjected to a
normal

force which can cause buckling and shear force cause bending.
Thus, there can be bending deformation or breaking of the part. Properties such as
strength,

hardness, and stiffness are needed. the appropriate material for the purpose is mild steel

The second basic element is the design of the hydraulic cylinder. According to the system
the

cylinder is subjected to direct compressive force which leads to the bending and buckling
load in

the rod and also due to the internal pressure of the fluid, there are circumferential and

longitudinal stresses all around the wall thickness, thereby the cylinder must have
properties such

as strength, toughness, ductility and hardness. An appropriate material is a mild steel.

The third components are top platform and base support frame. The top platform takes
the load

caused by a weight of lifting the material. The main needed property here is strength and
the

selected material is mild steel. The base support frame is subjected to the weight of the
load scissors mechanism itself -cylinder and Scissor arms, hence, hardness and stiffness
are required.
Mild steel is appropriate.

Based on the given specification and the mechanical properties of the material we have
selected

mild steel with the following property

Table 1:physical property of mild steel

Physical properties Value(metric)

Density 7.87 g/cc

Mechanical properties

Table 2: mechanical property of mild steel

Mechanical properties Value(metric)

Hardness, Brinell 126

Hardness, Rockwell B (converted from Brinell) 71

Tensile strength, ultimate 440 MPa

Tensile strength, yield 370 MPa

Modulus of elasticity (typical for steel) 205 GPa

Bulk modulus (typical for steel) 140 GPa

Poisson’s ratio (typical for steel) 0.290

Shear modulus (typical for steel) 80.0 GPa

1.6 Methodology

The methodology of this study can be further break down to 5 steps

1. Data collection: collecting design data from different journals, Screw Jack

manufacturing companies websites and review them

2. Numerical analysis: computing spindle diameter, tommy-bar diameter, body

thickness, head diameter, and other geometries of the screw jack using stress analysis.

3. Check whether the results obtained from step to are safe to proceed by checking for

buckling and over hauling conditions

4. Modeling: detail drawing of the main parts and assembly

5. Report: write the final thesis, draw conclusion from what we get from above steps