The working surfaces of gear teeth are often the result of several machining operations. The surface texture imparted by the manufacturing process affects many of the gear's functional characteristics. To ensure proper operation of the final assembly, a gear's surface texture characteristics, such as waviness and roughness, can be evaluated with modern metrology instruments.

Today's high technology hobs are visible different from their predecessors. Gear hobs have taken on a different appearance and function with present day technology and tool and material development. This article shows the newer products being offered today and the reasons for investigating their potential for use in today's modern gear hobbers, where cost reduction and higher productivity are wanted.

The first part of this article included abrasive wear with two bodies, streaks and scoring, polishing, and hot and cold scuffing. This part will deal with three-body wear, scratches or grooves, and interference wear. Normal, moderate, and excessive wear will be defined, and a descriptive chart will be presented.

The phenomena of deterioration of surfaces are generally very complex and depend on numerous conditions which include the operating conditions, the type of load applied, the relative speeds of surfaces in contact, the temperature, lubrication, surfaces hardness and roughness, and the compatibility and nature of materials.

From time to time, the editors of "Shop Floor" receive correspondence from readers relating to particular articles they have written for past issues. As one of the purposes of this column is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas, we reproduce here two of these letters and their replies. The subject of the first is the functional measurement of gears. (See Gear Technology, Sept/Oct, 1991, p. 17) Robert E. Smith writes the reply.

The whole point of a trade show is to get leads that will turn into sales. No matter how attractive your booth was, no matter how smoothly the setup and the show ran, no matter how many visitors you had at your booth, if your presence at a show didn't net you any sales, then your considerable investment of time, money, and effort has been wasted.

The purpose of gear inspection is to: Assure required accuracy and quality, Lower overall cost of manufacture by controlling rejects and scrap, Control machines and machining practices and maintain produced accuracy as machines and tools wear, Determine hear treat distortions to make necessary corrections.

In the 1960's and early 1970's, considerable work was done to identify the various modes of damage that ended the lives of rolling element bearings. A simple summary of all the damage modes that could lead to failure is given in Table 1. In bearing applications that have insufficient or improper lubricant, or have contaminants (water, solid particles) or poor sealing, failure, such as excessive wear or vibration or corrosion, may occur, rather than contact fatigue. Usually other components in the overall system besides bearings also suffer. Over the years, builders of transmissions, axles, and gear boxes that comprise such systems have understood the need to improve the operating environment within such units, so that some system life improvements have taken place.

Temperature Induced Dimensional Changes Temperature causes various materials to change size at different rate, known as their Coefficients of Expansion (COE). The effects of this phenomenon on precision dimensional measurements are continuous and costly to industry. Precautions can be taken to allow parts and gages to temperature stabilize before conducting gage R & R studies, but the fact remains that on the shop floor temperatures vary all the time. The slow pace at which industry has accepted this reality probably has to do with the subtlety of these tiny size variations and our inability to sense gradual, but significant temperature changes.

The design of any gearing system is a difficult, multifaceted process. When the system includes bevel gearing, the process is further complicated by the complex nature of the bevel gears themselves. In most cases, the design is based on an evaluation of the ratio required for the gear set, the overall envelope geometry, and the calculation of bending and contact stresses for the gear set to determine its load capacity. There are, however, a great many other parameters which must be addressed if the resultant gear system is to be truly optimum. A considerable body of data related to the optimal design of bevel gears has been developed by the aerospace gear design community in general and by the helicopter community in particular. This article provides a summary of just a few design guidelines based on these data in an effort to provide some guidance in the design of bevel gearing so that maximum capacity may be obtained. The following factors, which may not normally be considered in the usual design practice, are presented and discussed in outline form: Integrated gear/shaft/bearing systems Effects of rim thickness on gear tooth stresses Resonant response