Michel Octrue works at CETIM, the French Technical Center for Mechanical Industries, in
the field of mechanical power transmission as a specialist in the behavior of mechanical components (gears, roller bearing, etc.). His expertise is focused on projects involving mechanical power transmission components and their integrations in gear reducers, machines, and systems for
automotive and transportation devices. His experience covers the different stages from the design-calculation, choice of tolerances, selection of materials and heat treatment, and development and
validation by numerical simulation. His activity is focused on design and project management and analysis (fatigue and failure analysis) in testing engineering for mechanical power transmission components. He is strongly involved in the technical committee with French gear manufacturers at CETIM and in the development of gear standards with AFNOR, UNM and ISO. Octrue is the convenor of ISO TC60/SC1/WG7 on worm gears and is an academic member of AGMA.
The first part of this article describes the analytical design method developed by the author to evaluate the load capacity of worm gears.
The second part gives a short description of the experimental program and testing resources being used at CETIM to check the basic assumptions of the analytical method; and to determine on gears and test wheels the surface pressure endurance limits of materials that can be used for worm gears.
The end of the article compares the results yielded by direct application of the method and test results.