In piston engine engineering, a balance shaft is an eccentric weighted shaft which offsets vibrations in engine designs that are not inherently balanced (for example, most four-cylinder engines). They were first invented and patented by British engineer Frederick Lanchester in 1904.
Read more about Balance Shaft: Overview, Four-cylinder Applications, Six-cylinder Applications, Production Implementations
Famous quotes containing the words balance and/or shaft:
“Any balance we achieve between adult and parental identities, between children’s and our own needs, works only for a time—because, as one father says, “It’s a new ball game just about every week.” So we are always in the process of learning to be parents.”
—Joan Sheingold Ditzion, Dennie, and Palmer Wolf. Ourselves and Our Children, by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, ch. 2 (1978)
“Lord, crack their teeth! Lord, crush these lions’ jaws!
So let them sink as water in the sand;
When deadly bow their aiming fury draws,
Shiver the shaft ere past the shooter’s hand.
So make them melt as the dishoused snail”
—Bible: Hebrew Psalm LVIII (Paraphrased by the Countess of Pembroke)