What is a crank shaft?

Answer 1

On an internal combustion engine, the crankshaft is the part that connects to the piston rods and the flywheel. It changes the up and down motion of the pistons to the rotating motion needed to power the vehicle!

Answer 2

The crankshaft is a major part of the Internal Combustion Engine, invented by the Muslim inventor Al-Jazari in the 12th century (see last note).

The first cars did not have an electric start, and no way to prime the pistons. To do this a person had to rotate the engine's main shaft. To get the mechanical advantage to rotate this shaft a crank lever was hooked onto the end of that main shaft; thus it became the CRANKSHAFT. Drivers would crank the engine, turning this main shaft to start the engine.

The pistons go up and down, they transfer this power to the crankshaft through the piston arms. They do this with special joints that encircle the crankshaft, but do not lock the piston arms to the crankshaft. The crankshaft sends power forward to the fan belt, and rearward into flywheel and the transmission. The rotational energy is then transferred to the wheels via other systems. Even front wheel drive engines are designed this way. Hybrid cars use electric motors to turn the crankshaft, with the fuel flow turned off. Pure electric cars use several motors to turn a crankshaft, thus the engine can mate with standard parts that are used in internal combustion engines and on other cars.

Crankshafts are precision-machined equipment that has to move precisely and very fast. The crankshaft is one of the most important parts of an engine. If a crankshaft breaks then the entire engine must be taken apart to replace it. Due to the stresses on the crankshaft it cannot be repaired it has to be replaced.

According to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Combustion_Engine#Parts
"The parts of an engine vary depending on the engine's type. For a four-stroke engine, key parts of the engine include the crankshaft (purple), one or more camshafts (red and blue) and valves. For a two-stroke engine, there may simply be an exhaust outlet and fuel inlet instead of a valve system. In both types of engines, there are one or more cylinders (gray and green) and for each cylinder there is a spark plug (darker-gray), a piston (yellow) and a crank (purple). A single sweep of the cylinder by the piston in an upward or downward motion is known as a stroke and the downward stroke that occurs directly after the air-fuel mix in the cylinder is ignited is known as a power stroke."

Look at the picture on the right and look at the bottom for the crankshaft, colored in purple.

The configurations can be more complex and some engines can have multiple crankshafts, but most cars only use one. If your read the article then you will read that the cylinder is connected to the crankshaft. Actually the piston rides inside the cylinder, it has an airtight base and that base connects to the piston arms, which connect to the drive shaft.

Read this Wikipedia article for more information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crankshaft
"The crankshaft was invented by the Muslim inventor Al-Jazari in the 12th century."
If you look at the first picture in the article the crankshaft is in red and you will notice how it is not straight, but it makes a lot of 90 degree bends; they are needed for the piston arms to work properly.

Answer 3

RE:
What is a crank shaft?

Answer 4

A mechanical device that converts reciprocal motion to circular motion.

Answer 5

Would take many paragraphs to fully explain. Simply put, it is the very bottom of the engine, this is the odd shaped item that your pistons are attached to.

Answer 6

it sounds like something you smoke crack out of...but its has to do with cars

Answer 7

One that gets soft just when you are about to......