March/April 2016

Time to Take Off the Training Wheels

Teaching a kid to ride a bike is hard work. Sure, you can put training wheels on the bike, and the kid will be mostly safe, build some confidence and manage to get around. But it's not really riding a bike, is it?

Critique of the ISO 15144-1 Method to Predict the Risk of Micropitting

There exists an ongoing, urgent need for a rating method to assess micropitting risk, as AGMA considers it a "a very significant failure mode for rolling element bearings and gear teeth - especially in gearbox applications such as wind turbines."

Practical Approach to Determining Effective Case Depth of Gas Carburizing

Effective case depth is an important factor and goal in gas carburizing, involving complicated procedures in the furnace and requiring precise control of many thermal parameters. Based upon diffusion theory and years of carburizing experience, this paper calculates the effective case depth governed by carburizing temperature, time, carbon content of steel, and carbon potential of atmosphere. In light of this analysis, carburizing factors at various temperatures and carbon potentials for steels with different carbon content were calculated to determine the necessary carburizing cycle time. This methodology provides simple (without computer simulation) and practical guidance of optimized gas carburizing and has been applied to plant production. It shows that measured, effective case depth of gear parts covering most of the industrial application range (0.020 inch to over 0.250 inch) was in good agreement with the calculation.

Practical Gear Characteristics: Process Characteristics of the Most Popular Cutting Methods

The cutting process consists of either a roll only (only generating motion), a plunge only or a combination of plunging and rolling. The material removal and flank forming due to a pure generating motion is demonstrated in the simplified sketch in Figure 1 in four steps. In the start roll position (step 1), the cutter profile has not yet contacted the work. A rotation of the work around its axis (indicated by the rotation arrow) is coupled with a rotation of the cutter around the axis of the generating gear (indicated by the vertical arrow) and initiates a generating motion between the not-yet-existing tooth slot of the work and the cutter head (which symbolizes one tooth of the generating gear).

Defying the Oil Ripple

The oil industry is (pardon the pun) tanking. That may conjure up horrific images of other industries following suit in a domino effect of collective collapse into the overabundant oil slick the industry is currently drowning in, but not everyone is getting knocked down alongside the oil sector.

Plastic Gearing Continues Converting the Unconverted

Plastic gears are everywhere today - throughout your car, at the oceans' lowest depths, in deep space. The question, when is a metal gear a candidate for plastic conversion, can be addressed in three words, i.e. what's the application?

Taking on Tight Margins in Wind Energy

Onshore and offshore wind turbines boast some of the most critical assets in order to run effectively.

Hard-Finishing Spiral Bevel Gears

Could you explain to me the difference between spiral bevel gear process face hobbing-lapping, face milling-grinding and Klingelnberg HPG? Which one is better for noise, load capacity and quality?

Adding Up Gear Spheres

Paul Nylander is something between an entrepreneur and a Renaissance man. He has degrees in engineering and physics, but he's also a creative artist who's put together sketches and 3D renderings alike. His website, bugman123. com, features everything from an in-depth explanation of a Tesla coil to 3D renderings of physics equations to an extensive library of fractal-based artwork. At first glance, one might find Nylander's many pursuits to be somewhat scattershot, but at their core, his works are tied together by his love for all things mathematical.

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