>>939468866
It's a real thing. It refers to the gearbox that allows you to take rotational energy from an input shaft and transfer it to two output shafts that are not physically locked together.
>>939468458
Energy goes into the crown wheel (2) which has a carrier assembly bolted to it (5). This assembly hosts two small gears (4) which are mounted opposite one another.
Now, we're going to assume the axle shafts (1) connect to tires on the ground. When the tires are both gripping the road they want to turn in sync. This is because the ground is acting as kind of like a big brake. So the small gears cannot rotate independently to allow the wheel to rotate at different speeds and thus we move forward.
However, if we're driving and one wheel starts to slip. What happens is those small gears will begin to rotate, allowing the large gears (3) and outpust shafts (1) to spin at different speeds.
For each (3) there is a (1) that rotates in sync with it on the same side.
Part 7 typically bolts to part 6 to rotate the crown wheel.
Also this diagram is weird since in at least some axles, the small gears are actually locked opposite from each other by running a bar between them.
