In earlier studies, surface roughness has been shown to have a significant influence on gear pitting life. This paper discusses how high surface roughness introduces a wear mechanism that delays the formation of pits. Accompanied by a full-page technical review.
Surface coatings or finishing processes are the future technologies
for improving the load carrying capacity of case hardened gears. With
the help of basic tests, the influence of different coatings and finishing
processes on efficiency and resistance to wear, scuffing, micropitting,
and macropitting is examined.
Carburized helical gears with high retained austenite were tested for surface contact fatigue. The retained austenite before test was 60% and was associated with low hardness near the case's surface. However, the tested gears showed good pitting resistance, with fatigue strength greater than 1,380 MPa.
Gear pitting is one of the primary failure modes of automotive transmission gear sets. Over the past years, many alternatives have been intended to improve their gear surface durability. However, due to the nature of new process development, it takes a length of time and joint efforts between the development team and suppliers to investigate and verify each new approach.
During the last decade, industrial gear manufacturers, particularly in Europe, began to require documentation of micropitting performance before approving a gear oil for use in their equipment. The development of micropitting resistant lubricants has been limited both by a lack of understanding of the mechanism by which certain lubricant chemistry promotes micropitting and by a lack of readily available testing for evaluation of the micropitting resistance of lubricants. This paper reports results of two types of testing: (1) the use of a roller disk machine to conduct small scale laboratory studies of the effects of individual additives and combinations of additives on micropitting and (2) a helical gear test used to study micropitting performance of formulated gear oils.
This is the third article in a series exploring the new ISO 6336 gear rating standard and its methods of calculation. The opinions expressed herein are htose of the author as an individual. They do not represent the opinions of any organization of which he is a member.
Aircraft transmissions for helicopters, turboprops and geared turbofan aircraft require high reliability and provide several thousand hours of operation between overhauls. In addition, They should be lightweight and have very high efficiency to minimize operating costs for the aircraft.