For more than 10 months, NASA ground engineers and International Space Station (ISS) astronauts have been
struggling with a perplexing malfunction of one of the station’s two solar array rotary joints (SARJ).
This paper intends to determine the load-carrying capacity of thermally damaged parts under rolling stress. Since inspection using real gears is problematic, rollers are chosen as an acceptable substitute. The examined scope of thermal damage from hard finishing extends from undamaged, best-case parts to a rehardening zone as the worst case. Also, two degrees of a tempered zone have been examined.
Conical involute gears, also known as beveloid gears, are generalized involute gears that have the two flanks of the same tooth characterized by different base cylinder radii and
different base helix angles.