What is ISO 9981 about?
ISO 9981 is an international standard on belt drives of road vehicles that discusses the dimensions of various types of drives.
ISO 9981 specifies the principal dimensional characteristics of V-ribbed pulley groove profiles, together with the corresponding endless V-ribbed belts of PK profile which are used predominantly for automotive accessory drive applications.
NOTE: ISO 9981 does not apply to the complete array of V-ribbed belts and pulleys of PH, PJ, PK, PL, and PM profiles for industrial and other non-automotive applications.
Who is ISO 9981 for?
ISO 9981 on belt drives is relevant to:
- Mechanical engineers
- Automotive industry
- Manufacturers of belt drives
Why should you use ISO 9981?
Belt drives are a pair of pulleys attached to usually parallel shafts and connected by an encircling flexible belt that can serve to transfer and modify rotary motion from one shaft to the other. ISO 9981 addresses the groove dimensions of PK pulleys and PK belts.
Designation of pulleys and belts are provided in ISO 9981 by a series of numbers and letters and by the number of belt ribs, the profile, and the effective length respectively.
Overall, ISO 9981 can help you ensure operational reliability and long service life when manufacturing belt drives and other accessories for road vehicles.
What’s changed since the last update?
BS ISO 9981:2020 supersedes BS ISO 9981:1998. BS ISO 9981:2020 includes some technical changes with respect to BS ISO 9981:1998. These include:
- The normative references list has been updated
- Clarification has been made where the standard is not for elastic belts
- The current roughness values have been removed
- The maximum pulley groove radius has been specified.
