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Perceive, Understand & Perform

AICA and Schaeffler demonstrate the role Physical AI can play in the manufacturing environment

Conversations on the role Physical AI will play on shop floors across manufacturing took place at every stop I made during the Automate Show in Chicago. Robots—in addition to literally doing the heavy lifting—are now being asked to independently learn from experiences and discover solutions without the assistance of human programmers. At the Universal Robots (Teradyne Robotics) booth, I was treated to some amazing force sensing applications that led to a discussion on a recent gearbox assembly use case between AICA (a partner of UR) and Schaeffler that tapped robots to assemble gearboxes.

Strain Wave Gear Production in the Age of Humanoid Robots

Humanoid robots need precise strain wave gears in their joints, and building and inspecting those gears at scale will call for equally advanced production technology

The Near Future of Mechanical Drive for Humanoid Robots

AI has moved humanoid robots forward, but safety, reliability and cost in the actuator drivetrain still stand in the way of commercial deployment

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Technical Articles

Design and Load Capacity of Crown Gears in Comparison to Bevel Gears

Through loaded tooth contact analysis of two applications, this paper demonstrates that crown gears can match bevel gear load capacity while offering meaningful advantages in weight reduction, axial-force-free pinion mounting, and assembly simplicity.

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Couplings and Clutches

A technical overview of the three principal face couplings (Hirth, Coniflex, and Curvic), comparing their tooth geometries, self-centering behavior, and Gleason’s cutting and grinding processes for manufacturing them.

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Analytical Calculation of the Gear Body Stiffness of Face Gears

This paper presents a new analytical method using plate and disk mechanical models to calculate the gear body stiffness of face gear wheels, showing that stiffness decreases toward the outer radius—a behavior that conventional cylindrical gear approaches fail to capture.

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Smart Alloying Eliminates Manufacturing Steps in Automotive Gears

20NiMo9-7 alloy achieves up to 48 percent higher fatigue strength than conventional carburizing steels in the as-carburized condition, eliminating the need for shot peening and grinding in automotive gear applications.

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Design

Mechanical power loss in gears is generated through sliding and rolling of the contact resulting in frictional work and elastic hysteresis generation of heat. This action is both a parasitic loss of energy from the drivetrain and a source of engineering costs to control system temperature to avoid heat-related failures of the gearbox components. Therefore, from both a cost and durability standpoint it is of great interest to minimize the frictional losses at the gear tooth contact interface.

Grinding

When grinding steel parts, the surface of the part can "burn" if too much heat is applied in a short time. Grinding burn refers to all those structural changes in edge zones of steel parts that are caused by grinding processes in steels due to the thermal energy introduced. Grinding burn can mainly occur in the form of tempering zones or new hardening zones.

Inspection

In conventional gear manufacturing, quality control is carried out for a number of pieces per batch. Most parts enter final gearbox assembly without any inspection. Among other things, this approach is based on two facts: measuring time is significantly longer than the machining time, and the limited measuring capacity available.

Heat Treating

The roots of heat-treating run deep within ASM (American Society for Materials) International, as its society was founded in Detroit in 1913 as The Steel Treaters Club. The heat-treating constituency of ASM created the Heat Treating Society (HTS) to provide focused leadership, communications, and service development to its network of worldwide membership of captive and commercial heat treaters, equipment manufacturers, researchers, governments, and technicians. To discuss Heat Treat 2023, the 32nd annual HTS Conference and Exhibition, Gear
Technology took a moment to catch up with conference chair Andrew Banka, vice president of Airflow Sciences Corporation. Heat Treat 2023 is colocated with IMAT and Motion + Power Technology Expo in Detroit, October 17–19.

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Videos

Liebherr Hobbing Machine LC 280 DC with FlexChamfer

​The LC 280 DC gear hobbing machine from Liebherr is designed for precise gear cutting up to module 4.5 mm. It combines high productivity with advanced technology, featuring simultaneous FlexChamfer for efficient deburring and chamfering during the hobbing process.

Industry News

Ceratizit USA announces the addition of Eric Rose as technical sales engineer for the U.S. Aerospace Assembly Tooling division. Rose will support Ceratizit’s sales teams and end users with specialized tooling applications used in the manufacture and assembly of aircraft, helicopters, rockets and satellite components.

Product News

 EcoCortec, the European subsidiary of Cortec Corporation, developed two certified compostable packaging films for heavy-duty industrial use: EcoShrink and EcoWrap. Manufactured at its facility in Croatia, these films serve as direct replacements for conventional polyethylene. They allow operations teams to maintain pallet load stability and meet environmental targets using their existing wrapping equipment and packaging workflows.

Calendar

AIoT World Expo

Feb 9, 2027 - Feb 11, 2027

The AIoT World Expo (Ft. Lauderdale, FL) explores the potential of intelligent machines, prescriptive analytics, sensor driven analytics and block chain solutions. Attendees learn about IoT technologies that are driving the transformation in manufacturing, supply chain and operations.

Additive Manufacturing Strategies 2027

Feb 23, 2027 - Feb 25, 2027

CES 2027

Jan 6, 2027 - Jan 9, 2027

PowerGen 2027

Jan 18, 2027 - Jan 21, 2027

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