Gears are moving parts in complex systems, and as a result, they tend to deal with a lot of wear and tear over time. Even flawlessly machined gears, composed of ideal materials and taken care of appropriately, can eventually fail after enough time. When this happens, your entire system can be compromised, and of course, you’ll have to reverse engineer a suitable replacement gear.
There are main types of gear failure you’ll need to watch out for:
- Bending fatigue.Bending fatigue occurs over time in response to repetitive loading. Over time, this loading can lead to microscopic cracks in the gear, followed by crack propagation perpendicular to the area with the highest load, and finally, a fracture to the gear. You’ll noticed concentric “beach marks” where bending fatigue is occurring.
- Contact fatigue.Contact fatigue, sometimes called Hertzian fatigue, happens when repetitive, direct stresses cause abrasions or otherwise deteriorate the integrity of the gear. Contact fatigue can occur as micropitting, less than 1 mm in diameter, or macropitting, more than 1 mm in diameter.
- General wear.齿磨损可以occur in three main categories of stimuli: abrasions, adhesions, and polishing. In abrasions, contaminants in a lubricant wear away at the gear. In adhesions, outside materials attach themselves to the tooth. Polishing is a type of abrasion at the smallest scale. Gear wear ranges from mild to severe, depending on the intensity and nature of the gear’s movement within a system.
- Scuffing.Scuffing is essentially a severe form of adhesion wear, when metal from one gear tooth transfers to another over time.
Keeping an eye on these potential forms of gear failure can help you keep your gears operational for longer. When the inevitable happens and a gear does fail, be sure to contact Federal Gear for a free quote on your custom gear manufacturing job.