Racks are portions of a cylindrical disk with an infinite radius which has involute shaped teeth cut into its face. Racks mate solely with spur gears that have the same module, Metric Gear Rack pressure angle and preferably face width. KHK offers equipment racks in many materials, configurations, modules 
and lengths. One unique feature of our racks is definitely that most are supplied with finished ends. This kind of production permits multiple racks to end up being butted, end-to-end, to create one continuous amount of rack. Most of the products that people offer enable secondary operations such as for example reduction of the distance, the adding of tapped holes, or the application of heat therapy. Our offering also contains products that have already had some of these secondary operations completed.
The straight tooth cylindrical gear that the radius of the pitch cylinder is infinite and in a bar form is called a gear rack. If it is sorted by the positions of the gear shafts, it is one of the parallel shaft category. The spur gear that meshes with a gear rack is generally called a pinion.
Besides equipment racks with straight line teeth, there are helical racks that have slanted the teeth. Helical gear racks are paired with helical gears, but due to the slant of the tooth direction, as in helical gears, the mesh creates axial thrust forces.
Among the gear racks’ primary applications are machine tools and transport devices and 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 such as having the ability to satisfy a heavier load through the use of larger modules and having no duration limitation by connecting gear racks with completed ends. On the other hand, an example of the disadvantages of gear racks includes the occurrence of backlash.
When manufacturing gear racks, due to their bar shape, bending often results. In these cases, corrective procedures using presses are often employed.