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1800-102-2727Have you ever wondered how the mechanism for drawing water from good works? Or how can one pull applications or lift objects with ease? Introduced first in 1500 B.C, the pulley is one of the most widely used to lift or pull heavy loads. In simple words, the pulley mechanism helps lift heavyweight objects that bare hands cannot lift with very little force. In this article, we discuss the definition of the pulley, various properties of the pulley mechanism, etc.
The pulley can be defined as a mechanical device that consists of a wheel and a rope. The rope is connected to the wheel as it is surrounding the wheel and its rim; It can be freely rotated around the wheel’s axis, passing through the center. Thus, the rope is the pulley's driving element. This helps lift heavy loads from the ground level. The pulley wheel is fixed to a hinge and rotates on an axle or shaft, and the object is loaded or tied to the other end of the rope. Hence, when the rope is pulled from the other side by the application of force, the object is lifted.
Based on the applications and different types of assembly, pulleys can be divided into the following categories:-
As we know that a pulley is a mechanical device that can help lift heavyweight objects, there are several kinds of pulley formulas one can utilize while measuring the effectiveness of the pulley. To calculate the mechanical advantage of the pulley system, we can use any one of the following formulas:-
We can also calculate the mechanical advantage of a pulley with the help of the number of loops in the system. In a single loop system, the effort required to pull the weight is equal to the weight itself. By introducing another loop of rope (adding another wheel attached to the first wheel by using an additional rope), the effort required to pull the same weight becomes half as compared to the previous arrangement assembly.
Further on, if we add another loop, the effort now becomes one-third compared to the first arrangement assembly, and therefore, the mechanical advantage is 3. Hence we can conclude that to increase the mechanical advantage, more pulleys can be added. However, it has to be noted that after a certain number of pulleys, the mechanical advantage does not change and becomes constant.
Several applications of the pulley are as follows:-