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.
Some of the pressure on American manufacturers seems to be letting up. This is welcome relief, considering the squeeze they have been under for the past few years.
Nobody's sure what went on in Bolsa Chica, CA, when gear-shaped stones were used there 8,700 years ago, but a popular belief is that at least some activity revolved around manufacturing.
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.
If you think of Gear Expo as only a machine tool show, you're not seeing all of its potential. You may be tempted to skip it this year, especially if you're struggling to fill your current capacity. I've heard too many stories of canceled orders, falling profits and slashed budgets to believe that great numbers of you will be attending Gear Expo with buying new machines as your No. 1 priority.
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.
For high-quality carburized, case hardened gears, close case carbon control is essential.
While tight carbon control is possible, vies on what optimum carbon level to target can be wider than the tolerance.