Wheel And Axle Calculator
Work out wheel and axle instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.
About Wheel And Axle Calculator
A wheel and axle is a rotating lever: the effort acts at the wheel radius and the load at the axle radius, so the mechanical advantage is their ratio. A 0.4 m wheel on a 0.05 m axle multiplies force eightfold, lifting 800 N with 100 N. Each full turn raises the load by the axle circumference, 0.314 m here.
Formulas
Mechanical advantage
MA = wheel radius / axle radius
Lift per turn
lift = 2 pi x axle radius
Worked example
With the default values below, Wheel And Axle Calculator returns Mechanical Advantage of 8.000. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.
Inputs used
- Wheel radiusminimum 0 m
- 0.4 m
- Axle radiusminimum 0 m
- 0.05 m
- Load on the axleminimum 0 N
- 800 N
Results
- Mechanical Advantage
- 8.000
- Effort At The Wheel Rim
- 100.00 N
- Rim Travel Per Unit Of Load Lift
- 8.000
- Load Raised Per Turn
- 0.3142 m
Step by step
- 1Values used
- 2Mechanical advantage
- 3Lift per turn
- 4Mechanical Advantage= 8.000
- 5Effort At The Wheel Rim= 100.00 N
- 6Rim Travel Per Unit Of Load Lift= 8.000
- 7Load Raised Per Turn= 0.3142 m
Assumptions and limits
- The result is derived only from the 3 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
- In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax or compounding frequency into account.
- Figures are rounded for display to 4 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.
How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is this arrangement used?
Windlasses, well winches, capstans and car steering. A screwdriver handle is the same idea - a fat grip turning a thin shaft.
Why is the lift per turn so small?
That is the trade-off. Eight times the force means one eighth of the travel, so a heavy load rises slowly.