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mechanical advantage

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mechanical advantage

[mi′kan·ə·kəl əd′van·tij]
(mechanical engineering)
The ratio of the force produced by a machine such as a lever or pulley to the force applied to it. Also known as force ratio.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

Mechanical advantage

Ratio of the force exerted by a machine (the output) to the force exerted on the machine, usually by an operator (the input). The term is useful in discussing a simple machine, where it becomes a figure of merit. It is not particularly useful, however, when applied to more complicated machines, where other considerations become more important than a simple ratio of forces. See Efficiency, Simple machine

McGraw-Hill Concise Encyclopedia of Engineering. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
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References in periodicals archive
With a beam for a lever, two scales, a spring scale, and a weight, students can demonstrate mechanical advantage.
The mechanical advantage of the pulley is increased by pulling the string a longer distance.
Behrens Yamada and Boulding (1998) demonstrated that crabs with greater propal height (a proxy for closer muscle mass) and higher mechanical advantage of the claw lever system crush snail shells more quickly than crabs with weaker claws.
The text ends with four appendices: Appendix I--International Phonetic Alphabet, with consonant formation guidelines; Appendix II--Hands on the back of the chair: A "position of mechanical advantage" for re-educating the breathing mechanism; Appendix III--Contact Information; and Appendix I--Notation, pitch names and frequency correlation chart.
"The beauty is that the effort applied to the wheels is relatively small compared to the mechanical advantage achieved, which is equal to the ratio of the radius of the wheel to the radius of the axle.
While it is impossible to ideally match everyone's exact points of mechanical advantage and disadvantage along their specific strength curve, the slight variance in resistance usually provides the lifter with a more evenly distributed load throughout the exercise's range of motion.
Mechanical Advantage Tourniquet (MAT-Bio Cybernetics International) (Figure 3); Special Operations Forces Tactical Tourniquet (SOFIT-Tactical Medical Solutions, LLC) (Figure 4); OHT (H-dyne-Hermodyne Inc.) (Figure 5); Last Resort Tourniquet (LRT-Hammerhead, LLC) (Figure 6); Emergency Military Tourniquet (EMT-Delfi Mecial Innovations Inc) (Figure 7); London Bridge Tourniquet (LBT-London Bridge Trading Company, LTD); [K.sup.2] Tactical Tourniquet ([K.sup.2]-HGWV, LLC).
This pulley system gives him the mechanical advantage to lift 800 pounds of backdrop quickly into the fly gallery.
Males tend to be faster during aerobic events due to their greater muscle strength and mechanical advantage of longer arms and legs.
The Scotchlok E-9R handcrimping tool is lightweight, and features single-stroke, parallel crimping action with a work-saving 10:1 mechanical advantage. The tool's ratchet-release design indicates a positive crimp by automatically releasing after each successful connection.
And being based on the Golf, it has a huge mechanical advantage over the air-cooled, rear-mounted original.
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