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12. Notes on the design of Shaft-Hub connections
One of the major problems faced by the power transmission industry is that of mounting hubs onto shafts. The "industry standard", the keyed mounting, has a number of widely acknowledged limitations. The keyways cut into the shaft and hub are; costly to produce, reduce the strength of the shaft in particular, and local stress concentrations can cause early failures due to fatigue. It is not surprising then that many alternative methods of connecting shafts and hubs are available from a wide variety of manufacturers.

The design of connections is not simple - especially if an optimum solution is to be found. British, American and ISO standards describe analytical techniques for the definition of keys, for example, but do not consider alternative connection methods. Manufacturers' catalogues, in contrast, often do not give adequate design information to enable a thorough verifying analysis to be performed on the connections they produce. Frequently, a simplified analytical selection procedure is given, but for a more comprehensive explanation it is necessary to make reference to the appropriate standard or text book for details.