The American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA) Technical Division Executive Committee, TDEC, announces a minor restructuring of AGMA technical committees to better serve the industry. The new structure will replace existing topic-specific committees with project-specific working groups that will be formed to develop the deliverable of each project. 

For 107 years, AGMA has been the go-to place for gear standards. We have been bringing together engineers and leaders from across our industry to keep our standards updated and in line with new technologies. We started with noise issues on electric street cars in the early 1900s, and today we lead the global ISO TC 60 committee on standards including wind-turbine gear-box development. As new technologies and gear applications emerged, AGMA has gathered experts to discuss, brainstorm, share, and collaborate on the topics of the day such as plastic gears, epicyclic gears, marine gears, wind turbine gearboxes, and, of course, gear sets for internal combustion vehicles. We have also kept updated standards on gear accuracy, materials, and lubrication. This work has led to standards that reduce costs, improve quality, and make safer products for manufacturers and consumers worldwide.

The individual components that go into a power transmission system such as gears, bearings, shafts, seals, fasteners, housings, or lubricant, all affect one another. A small tweak to the design of one may require a cascade of other design changes throughout the system. Because of this, the gear engineer should have some knowledge of the design of components besides gears. To that point, for this month’s article, I’m taking a sidestep from writing about gears to give an update on bearings; components found in nearly every power transmission system.

I’ve been seeing a lot of hype surrounding OpenAI’s artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT-4 recently. Including acing standardized tests and writing college term papers in seconds. Each time I read about it, I wonder how it, or a future generation of artificial intelligence (AI), will be used in companies and particularly in my job. To answer my question there’s no better place to go than to ask ChatGPT-4 itself.

This month's issue of Gear Technology covers a subject engineers love to learn about from others but hate to learn about through firsthand experience: gear failure. In a broad sense, all engineering is concerned with failure. Eventually, all parts fail, so engineers need to determine the limits of their design and ensure that it will meet the requirements of the particular application.

Thanks to our many hardworking volunteer committee members, 2022 was a productive year for the AGMA Technical Division with the publication of two new and three revised information sheets. Looking ahead to 2023, many AGMA technical committees plan to meet face to face for the first time since 2019, and they will continue work on ten projects.

AGMA is pleased to announce the publication of three new documents: AGMA 923-C22, Metallurgical Specifications for Steel and Cast Iron Gearing, written by the AGMA Metallurgy and Materials Committee, AGMA 929-B22, Calculation of Bevel Gear Top Land, Slot Widths and Cutter Edge Radii, written by the AGMA Bevel Gearing Committee, and AGMA 955-A22, Guidance for Industrial Gear Lubrication written by the AGMA Lubrication Committee.

Where would your business be without standards? Can you imagine if every gear manufacturer used different inspection and rating criteria? Or if you had to re-learn new gear nomenclature for each supplier and customer you talked to? Your costs and lead times would skyrocket whereas your quality and safety would plummet. Standards are the documented set of generally accepted practices, rules, guidelines, and requirements within an industry. They are meant to streamline the process, minimize overall cost and waste while improving quality, reliability, and overall customer satisfaction and fiscal health.  

AGMA wants you to be involved in gear standards development. The creation of standards helps drive innovation and increase the market value of gear design and manufacturing—it also promotes international trade and commerce, which in turn fuels more innovation. The AGMA Gear Accuracy committee is in the early planning stages for a comprehensive review, and possible revision, of the standard ANSI/AGMA 2116, Evaluation of Double Flank Testers for Radial Composite Measurement of Gears, and we need your input. Committee meetings are a great place to network and collaborate with experts in the field, broaden your knowledge, capture technical expertise in writing, refine the standards you use and see how your influence helps shape best practices throughout America and around the world.