Racks are portions of a cylindrical disk with an infinite radius which includes involute shaped tooth cut into its encounter. Racks mate exclusively with spur gears which have the same module, Metric Gear Rack pressure position and preferably face width. KHK offers gear racks in many components, configurations, modules and lengths. One unique feature of our racks is definitely that most are given finished ends. This kind of production allows for multiple racks to become butted, end-to-end, to produce one continuous length of rack. Most of the products that we offer allow for secondary procedures such as reduction of the space, the adding of tapped holes, or the application of heat treatment. Our offering also contains products which have already had a few of these secondary operations completed.
The straight tooth cylindrical gear for which the radius of the pitch cylinder is infinite and in a bar form is named a gear rack. If it’s sorted by the positions of the gear shafts, it is one of the parallel shaft category. The spur gear that meshes with a equipment rack is generally called a pinion.
Besides gear racks with straight series tooth, there are helical racks which have slanted teeth. Helical equipment racks are paired with helical gears, but because of the slant of the tooth direction, as in helical gears, the mesh creates axial thrust forces.
Among the gear racks’ main applications are machine tools and transport devices so when the applications involve transmitting linear motions, they are generally compared with ball screws. In those situations, the main advantages of gear racks could be named this kind of as 
being able to fulfill a heavier load through the use of bigger modules and having no size limitation by connecting gear racks with finished ends. On the other hand, a good example of the disadvantages of gear racks includes the occurrence of backlash.
When manufacturing equipment racks, because of their bar form, bending often results. In such cases, corrective processes using presses are often employed.