Torque-handling gear with teeth mounted on flexible arms

A first gear for use in a gear set including a second gear, said first and second gears for transferring torque between them, said first gear comprising:

• a) a hub having an axis and a periphery;
• b) a plurality of arms each made of an elastic material, each arm having a first end attached to the hub's periphery at a preselected attachment point and a second end coinciding with a line lying in a gear plane perpendicular to the axis and passing through the attachment point, said line making an acute arm angle with a radius line extending from the axis in the gear plane and through the attachment point, said arms' attachment points spaced around the hub's periphery, each pair of adjacent arms defining a slot between them, said arms having a dimension in the gear plane allowing elastic deflection of the arms in the gear plane as a cantilevered beam into the slot;
• c) at the end of each arm, a tooth for meshing with a tooth on the second gear to allow transfer of force between the first gear's tooth and the meshing second gear's tooth;
• and
• d) at least one load distributor contacting a second arm and at least a first of the arms defining the slot, each said load distributor for distributing to the second arm at least a portion of force applied to the tooth on the first of the arms and wherein said load distributor includes a material having a high coefficient of restitution.