Gear Rating

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2018-07-01

A Comparison of Current AGMA, ISO and API Gear Rating Methods

There are many different gear rating methods in use today, and they can give substantially different results for any given gearset. This paper will make it easy to understand the choices and the impact the choices have on gearbox design. Eight standards are included - AGMA 2001; AGMA 6011; AGMA 6013; ISO 6336; API 613; API 617; API 672; and API 677. (Click HERE for the Appendix to this article).

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2018-05-17

Computer Games

You kids are spoiled! Back in my day it took at least a day to see the results of computer modeling, longer if the courier dropped the box of input...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2018-03-29

Back to Basics: Helical Gears

Most of the gearboxes I have been involved with use single helical gears. Its excellent power capacity per mesh makes it the default system for man...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2018-03-08

The Old Family Recipe

Continuing with bevel gears… As a beginning gear guy, I was very content to leave the bevel gear design to the experts...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2018-03-06

Nothing Remains Constant

We cannot leave our lesson about tooth depths without covering bevel gears. There is a tendency to think of bevels and worms as being best left to ...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2017-07-28

A New Quoting Model?

Anyone actually enjoy quoting? For such an important part of daily business the process of establishing prices to offer a customer seems universall...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2017-05-11

Here There Be Dragons

On the AGMA Helical Gear Rating Committee we frequently deal with how to warn users away from potentially dangerous designs. Some years ago our won...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2015-09-22

How Reliable is Our Information?

How much can we trust our understanding of how things work? There was a special joint web ex meeting this week between two AGMA committees that got...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2015-05-21

Applied Science, Part Two

My previous posting on engineering vs. science reminded me of a professor who insisted “real engineers” had to be able to reason things back to “fi...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2015-02-24

Why is this Stuff Still so Complicated?

[starbox] Much of my engineering practice is working with companies that design machines only once in a while. I enjoy working with the people on ...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-07-08

Better to be Lucky than Smart

[starbox] The special 30th Anniversary Issue of Gear Technology magazine represents a lot of extra work on the part of...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-05-08

Treasured Gear Books

[starbox] This week’s Helical Gear Rating Committee meetings included a much hoped for improvement: a new member! Not only that, a new member un...

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2014-05-01

Application and Improvement of Face Load Factor Determination Based on AGMA 927

The face load factor is one of the most important items for a gear strength calculation. Current standards propose formulae for face load factor, but they are not always appropriate. AGMA 927 proposes a simpler and quicker algorithm that doesn't require a contact analysis calculation. This paper explains how this algorithm can be applied for gear rating procedures.

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-03-28

What Happened to FEA?

[starbox] Thinking back on my experiences on the Helical Gear Rating Committee, I am a bit shocked at what hasn’t happened. As AGMA 218 was bein...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-03-26

Where Do Allowable Stresses Come From?

One of the most important aspects of a gear rating standard is the allowable stress charts. For spur and ...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-03-24

Great Moments in Gear Rating

[starbox] By now readers of this Blog are aware of my interest in gear trade history. The more I learn about how we got to this point in our und...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-03-21

Action Items for the Gear Trade

[starbox] Recently I learned that it took over 20 years for the gear industry to agree on its first “standard” tooth form — and that was after s...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-03-07

What Did They Know and When Did They Know It?

[starbox] No, I am not launching a criminal investigation. The title of this posting summarizes my ongoing study of the history of gear ratings....

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-02-18

100 Years of Four Wheel Drive?

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-02-07

Many Hands Make For Light Work

[starbox] As mentioned in my last posting, the AGMA Helical Gear Rating Committee ([HGRC)] was in Chicago this week for two days of work on the ...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-02-05

Practical Magic

[starbox] Today I have t

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-02-03

Time for a Gear Awards Show?

[starbox] It is that time of year when some of our favorite television shows are pre-empted by awards shows. Every facet of the entertainment bu...

GEAR TALK WITH CHUCK | 2014-01-31

Barn Find Gearboxes

EVENTS | 2013-08-01

EMO 2013 - Intelligence in Production

Preview of some of the exhibits relevant to gear manufacturing at the upcoming EMO 2013.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2012-01-01

Accelerating Validation Testing

Bringing new or improved products to market sooner has long been proven profitable for companies. One way to help shorten the time-to-market is to accelerate validation testing. That is, shorten the test time required to validate a new or improved product.

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2012-01-01

Industry News

The complete Industry News section from the January/February 2012 issue of Gear Technology.

VOICES | 2011-11-01

A Proposed Life Calculation for Micropitting

If you make hardened gears and have not seen any micropitting, then you haven’t looked closely enough. Micropitting is one of the modes of failure that has more recently become of concern to gear designers and manufacturers. Micropitting in itself is not necessarily a problem, but it can lead to noise and sometimes other more serious forms of failure. Predicting when this will occur is the challenge facing designers.

INDUSTRY NEWS | 2008-05-01

Industry News

The complete Industry News section from the May 2008 issue of Gear Technology.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2004-11-01

Non-Standard Cylindrical Gears

Curved face width (CFW) spur gears are not popular in the gear industry. But these non-metallic gears have advantages over standard spur gears: higher contact ratio, higher tooth stiffness, and lower contact and bending stresses.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2002-11-01

Cutting Hardened Gears

The need for improved power transmissions that use gears and gearboxes with smaller overall dimensions and with lower noise generation has left manufacturing engineers searching for different methods of gear processing. This search has led to the requirement of hardened gears.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 2001-05-01

Gearbox Field Performance From a Rebuilder's Perspective

The major focus of the American Gear Manufacturers Association standards activity has been the accurate determination of a gearbox's ability to transmit a specified amount of power for a given amount of time. The need for a "level playing field" in the critical arena was one of the reasons the association was formed in the first place. Over the past 85 years, AGMA committees have spent countless hours "discussing" the best ways to calculate the rating of a gear set, often arguing vigorously over factors that varied the resulting answers by fractions of a percentage point. While all that "science" was being debated in test labs and conference rooms all over the country, out industry's customers were conducting their own experiments through the daily operation of gear-driven equipment of all types.

REVOLUTIONS | 1999-07-01

Revolutions

Welcome to Revolutions, the column that brings you the latest, most up-to-date and easy-to-read information about the people and technology of the gear industry.

ADDENDUM | 1998-07-01

The Music of the Gears

It should be obvious by now that gears are more than just mechanical components. We have brought you movies with gears and Shakespeare with gears, jewelry made out of gears and so on. Now we, the humble staff at Addendum, are proud to present gears in the world of music.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 1997-05-01

CNC Gear Grinding Methods

Grinding in one form or another has been used for more than 50 years to correct distortions in gears caused by the high temperatures and quenching techniques associated with hardening. Grinding improves the lead, involute and spacing characteristics. This makes the gear capable of carrying the high loads and running at the high pitch line velocities required by today's most demanding applications. Gears that must meet or exceed the accuracy requirements specified by AGMA Quality 10-11 or DIN Class 6-7 must be ground or hard finished after hear treatment.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 1996-11-01

The Advantages of Ion Nitriding Gears

When it comes to setting the standard for gear making, the auto industry often sets the pace. Thus when automakers went to grinding after hardening to assure precision, so did the machine shops that specialize in gearing. But in custom manufacturing of gears in small piece counts, post-heat treat grinding can grind away profits too.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 1996-09-01

Tooth Modification and Spur Gear Tooth Strain

A major source of helicopter cabin noise (which has been measured at over 100 decibels sound pressure level) is the gear box. Reduction of this noise is a NASA and U.S. Army goal.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 1996-09-01

Alternative Lubrication Methods for Large Open Gear Drives

The type of lubricant and the method of applying it to the tooth flanks of large open gears is very important from the point of view of lubrication technology and maintenance. When selecting the type of lubricant and the application method, it is important to check whether it is possible to feed the required lubricant quantity to the load-carrying tooth flanks, This is necessary to avoid deficient lubrication, damage to the gear and operational malfunctions. It is important to determine the type of lubricant, which may be fluid or grease-like. The consistency of the lubricant will have a direct impact on the ability of the lubrication system to feed adequately the lubricant to the gear. The interactions between the common types of lubricant and the lubrication application methods for open gear drives are shown in Fig. 1.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 1996-05-01

Generating Precision Spur Gears By Wire EDM

Over the past decade, the wire electrical discharge machine (EDM) has become an increasingly important tool for machining non-standard shapes. It has even been used to cut gears and gear cavities for plastic molds. While generally accepted as a quick and versatile method for cutting spur gears, the EDM gear has lacked the precision of a mechanically machined or ground gear. We suspected that many of the errors associated with these gears were caused by inexact setup procedures, poor tool path control and improper cutting parameters. We decided to test the potential for the wire EDM to make the most accurate gear possible.

PRODUCT NEWS | 1995-09-01

Product News

Welcome to our Product News page. Here we feature new products of interest to the gear and gear products markets.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 1995-07-01

How to Avoid Errors When Measuring Step Gears

There are problems in dimensional measurement that should be simple to solve with standard measuring procedures, but aren't. In such cases, using accepted practices may result in errors of hundreds of microns without any warning that something is wrong.

TECHNICAL ARTICLES | 1986-03-01

Controlling Tooth Loads In Helical Gears

Helical gears can drive either nonparallel or parallel shafts. When these gears are used with nonparallel shafts, the contact is a point, and the design and manufacturing requirements are less critical than for gears driving parallel shafts.

VOICES | 1985-01-01

Dear Editor

Congratulations from a number of readers who are impressed with the new magazine.