As a community, we gear engineers collaborate and share ideas to progress our collective capability. Technology progresses based on our efforts, and we have seen solid advances in the performance of our products as they become quieter, cheaper, more efficient, and more power dense. The pages of this magazine (past and present editions) are filled with examples where talented engineers have dug deeper into a subject using a more precise approach to a particular area concerning gear performance. The implied belief is always that greater precision (complexity) in the calculations brings greater accuracy (alignment with reality).
New training programs and digital training technologies are closing the gap between shortages in skilled workers and an increasingly complex manufacturing environment. People are your most valuable asset, and investments in training pay enormous dividends downstream.
Training has quickly evolved in recognition of the new realities of the factory floor. The training tool kit has never been more diverse or effective. Training regimens today, at the best companies, are analogous to those of the most successful professional sports or Olympic teams. Instead of weight room, nutrition, and practice, workers use digital webinars, simulations, and classrooms. If modern training tools and techniques result in faster, higher, and stronger on the athletic field, they also produce faster, smarter, and better for companies seeking a competitive edge in the marketplace.
Speedy delivery of high quality, open die forgings, seamless and contoured rolled rings, and complex forged parts is essential to the growing wind energy sector
Gear backlash refers to the clearance, or play, between the teeth of gears in a mechanical transmission system. Gear designers have strived to minimize gearing systems’ backlash due to the impact on precision, efficiency, noise, vibrations, wear, motion control, system complexity, and safety. Their significance varies depending on the applications, but designers need to carefully consider these factors when developing robotics systems to ensure they meet the desired performance and safety standards.
Gear Technology’s annual State-of-the-Gear-Industry survey polls gear manufacturers about the latest trends and opinions relating to the overall health of the gear industry. As in years past, the survey was conducted anonymously, with invitations sent by email to our subscribers, AGMA members, and others in the gear industry. Primarily, our responses come from North America, but they also include responses from around the world. Nearly 200 individuals responded to the survey.
Extremely accurate and impervious to contamination, hydraulic clamping is ideal for e-drive and other applications where producing high-precision gears is paramount.
In a world where hard finishing operations are now commonplace and high precision is the rule rather than the exception, many gear manufacturers are taking a closer look at workholding. Manufacturers have come to realize that workholding, long under-appreciated and over-looked, can play an important role in squeezing precious seconds out of idle time, help reduce costly runout on precision gear teeth to just a few microns, and cut the high cost of maintenance and repair.
Gear tooth profile grinding, also known as form grinding, is a finishing method used in gear manufacturing. It involves the use of vitrified bonded grinding wheels to modify or correct the profile of gear teeth, often after heat treatment. The grinding wheel runs between two opposing teeth, grinding both surfaces at the same time.
Manufacturers have a relatively new option that offers several key advantages—gear skiving on machining centers. Gear skiving on a mill-turn machining center with fully synchronous spindles is highly efficient, fast, and accurate. In some cases when producing small and medium-sized volumes, gear skiving will gradually replace established gear-cutting processes.
This article introduces the process of polish grinding of gears. Improved surface quality increases the overall efficiency of gearboxes, resulting in reduced friction and torque loss, higher power density, and noise-optimized gears (lower NVH); all these factors are highly relevant, especially for electric drives. When Reishauer developed polish grinding in 2012, the process aimed to improve the efficiency of ICE engine transmissions, and the set goals were easy to achieve. Today, in 2023, the situation is dramatically different. While an ICE engine operates at around 3,000 rpm and supplies acoustic masking of the gear noise, EV drivetrains feature up to 20,000 rpm and offer no such masking.
A deep dive into the world of gear dynamics and gear noise has led many a mechanical engineer to Columbus, OH in search of the methods by which gear noise is measured and predicted as well as the techniques employed in gear noise and vibration reduction. Over the past 40+ years, about 2,550 engineers and technicians from 385+ companies have attended the Gear Dynamics and Gear Noise Short Course at The Ohio State University.