Wave generators are located inside of flexsplines in most harmonic gear drive devices. Because the teeth on the wheel rim of the flexspline are distributed
radially, there is a bigger stress concentration on the tooth root of the flexspline meshing with a circular spline, where a fatigue fracture is more likely to occur under the alternating force exerted by the wave generator. The authors' solution to this problem is to place the wave generator outside of the flexspline, which is a scheme named harmonic
gear drive (HGD) with external wave generator (EWG).
There is a great need for future powertrains in automotive and industrial applications to improve upon their efficiency and power density while reducing their dynamic vibration and noise initiation. It is accepted that planetary gear transmissions have several advantages in comparison to conventional transmissions, such as a high power density due to the power division using several planet gears. This paper presents planetary gear transmissions, optimized in terms of
efficiency, weight and volume.
For metal replacement with powder metal (PM) of an automotive transmission, PM gear design differs from its wrought counterpart. Indeed, complete reverse-engineering and re-design is required so to better understand and document the performance parameters of solid-steel vs. PM gears. Presented here is a re-design (re-building a 6-speed manual transmission for an Opel Insignia 4-cylinder, turbocharged 2-liter engine delivering 220 hp/320 N-m) showing that substituting a different microgeometry of the PM gear teeth -- coupled with lower Young’s modulus -- theoretically enhances performance when compared to the solid-steel design.
This work establishes a baseline for aerospace spur gear behavior under oil-off conditions. The collected test results document a different oil-off time, dictated by material used.
This paper will provide examples of stress levels from conventional root design using a hob and stress levels using an optimized root design that is now possible with PM manufacturing. The paper will also investigate how PM can reduce stresses in the root from transient loads generated by abusive driving.
Bevel gears must be assembled in a specific way to ensure smooth running and optimum load distribution between gears. While it is certainly true that the "setting" or "laying out" of a
pair of bevel gears is more complicated than laying out a pair of spur gears, it is also true that following the correct procedure can make the task much easier. You cannot install bevel gears in the same manner as spur and helical gears and expect them to behave and perform as well; to optimize the performance of any two bevel gears, the gears must be positioned together so that they run smoothly without binding and/or excessive backlash.
Flank breakage is common in a number of cylindrical and bevel gear applications. This paper introduces a relevant, physically based calculation method to evaluate flank breakage risk vs. pitting
risk. Verification of this new method through testing is demonstrably shown.
It is widely recognized that the reduction of CO2 requires consistent
light-weight design of the entire vehicle. Likewise, the trend towards electric cars requires light-weight design to compensate for the additional weight of battery systems. The need for weight reduction is also present regarding vehicle transmissions. Besides the design of the gearbox housing, rotating masses such as gear wheels and shafts have a significant impact on fuel consumption. The current technology shows little potential of gear weight reduction due to the trade-off between mass optimization and the manufacturing process. Gears are usually forged followed or not by teeth cutting operation.
Composite spur gears were designed, fabricated and tested at NASA Glenn Research Center. The composite web was
bonded only to the inner and outer hexagonal features that were machined from an initially all-metallic aerospace quality spur gear. The hybrid gear was tested against an all-steel gear and against a mating hybrid gear. Initial results indicate that this type of hybrid design may have a dramatic effect on drive system weight without sacrificing strength.