| Gear Technology Magazine

Apologies

June 1, 2016

I'd like to apologize to the dedicated people working on revisions to the AGMA 925 standard and the Technical Report ISO 15144-1, both of which deal with the issue of micropitting. In the March/April issue of Gear Technology, we published an opinion piece in our Voices column that harshly criticized the methods for predicting micropitting outlined in ISO 15144-1.

The Comprehensive Gear Grind

June 1, 2016

Looking for some simple yet useful advice heading into IMTS 2016? Never second guess your machine tool investment. Flexibility is a mandatory requirement in gear manufacturing today. Accuracy, reliability and efficiency must improve with each new machine tool purchase. Innovation is always the end game. So it comes as no surprise that IMTS 2016 attendees will have plenty of gear grinding technologies to consider this fall.

Hail to the Quick-Change King

June 1, 2016

It's the year of the quick-change tool. From chucks to mandrels, workholding manufacturers across the industry are seeing a continuing trend from their customers: give us more quickchange.

Innovations for High Productivity Generating Grinding

June 1, 2016

Martin Witzsch

In comparison to the visionary Industry 4.0 - or the Fourth Industrial Revolution - the machine tool industry can appear rather down-to-earth.

Gear Backlash Analysis of Unloaded Gear Pairs in Transmissions

June 1, 2016

Carlos Wink

A best practice in gear design is to limit the amount of backlash to a minimum value needed to accommodate manufacturing tolerances, misalignments, and deflections, in order to prevent the non-driving side of the teeth to make contact and rattle. Industry standards, such as ANSI/AGMA 2002 and DIN3967, provide reference values of minimum backlash to be used in the gear design. However, increased customers' expectations in vehicle noise eduction have pushed backlash and allowable manufacturing tolerances to even lower limits. This is especially true in the truck market, where engines are quieter because they run at lower speeds to improve fuel economy, but they quite often run at high torsional vibration levels. Furthermore, gear and shaft arrangements in truck transmissions have become more complex due to increased number of speeds and to improve efficiency. Determining the minimum amount of backlash is quite a challenge. This paper presents an investigation of minimum backlash values of helical gear teeth applied to a light-duty pickup truck transmission. An analytical model was developed to calculate backlash limits of each gear pair when not transmitting load, and thus susceptible to generate rattle noise, through different transmission power paths. A statistical approach (Monte Carlo) was used since a significant number of factors affect backlash, such as tooth thickness variation; center distance variation; lead; runout and pitch variations; bearing clearances; spline clearances; and shaft deflections and misalignments. Analytical results identified the critical gear pair, and power path, which was confirmed experimentally on a transmission. The approach presented in this paper can be useful to design gear pairs with a minimum amount of backlash, to prevent double flank contact and to help reduce rattle noise to lowest levels.

Worm Gear Efficiency Estimation and Optimization

June 1, 2016

This paper outlines the comparison of efficiencies for worm gearboxes with a center distance ranging from 28 - 150 mm that have single reduction from 5 to 100:1. Efficiencies are calculated using several standards (AGMA, ISO, DIN, BS) or by methods defined in other bibliographic references. It also deals with the measurement of torque and temperature on a test rig — required for the calibration of an analytical model to predict worm gearbox efficiency and temperature. And finally, there are examples of experimental activity (wear and friction measurements on a blockon- ring tribometer and the measurements of dynamic viscosity) regarding the effort of improving the efficiency for worm gear drivers by adding nanoparticles of fullerene shape to standard PEG lubricant

Bevel Gear Cutting Methods

June 1, 2016

THE FINAL CHAPTER This is the last in the series of chapters excerpted from Dr. Hermann J. Stadtfeld's Gleason Bevel Gear Technology - a book written for specialists in planning, engineering, gear design and manufacturing. The work also addresses the technical information needs of researchers, scientists and students who deal with the theory and practice of bevel gears and other angular gear systems. While all of the above groups are of course of invaluable importance to the gear industry, it is surely the students who hold the key to its future. And with that knowledge it is reassuring to hear from Dr. Stadtfeld of the enthusiastic response he has received from younger readers of these chapter installments.

Making Music Via Marbles

June 1, 2016

According to his official biography, Martin Molin specializes in vibraphone and music box as the ringleader of the band Wintergatan (Swedish for The Milky Way).