January/February 2017

Archive > 2017 > January/February 2017

Download the January/February 2017 Issue in PDF format

Feature Articles

2017 State of the Gear Industry
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.

Slow and Steady
The results of our Annual State of the Gear Industry Survey (See page 26) provided insight on 2016 as well as forecasts for 2017. Here is additional insight from some of the industry's leaders.

Oil-Out Endurance Under the Lens
Oil-out conditions, or conditions in which an aircraft is operating without any oil in its gearbox or transmission, are devastating for an aircraft's hardware. Even the sturdiest gears usually can’t last 30 minutes under such conditions before they catastrophically fail, and the whole system usually follows shortly after. That doesn’t leave pilots with a whole lot of time to find a suitable location to land in the case of an oil-out emergency.

Business Development for the New Year
It’s the New Year, and with it comes the opportunity to take a fresh look at your business objectives. Because business development is such a vital part of running a company, I’d like to present some guidelines I have found beneficial for securing new work and new customers.

Technical Articles

Development of High-Hardness-Cast Gears for High-Power Mining Applications
Multiple possibilities are available to increase the transmissible power of girth gears. These solutions include: using a larger module, increasing of the gear diameter through the number of teeth, enlarging the face width, and increasing the hardness of the base material. The first three parameters are mostly limited by cutting machine capability. Module, outside diameter, and face width (for a cast gear) can theoretically be increased to infinity, but not the cutting machine dimensions. There are also practical limits with respect to the installation of very large diameter/large face width gears.

Repair of Large, Surface-Degraded Industrial Gears - a New Approach
This paper presents a new approach to repair industrial gears by showing a case study where pressure angle modification is also considered, differently from the past repairing procedures that dealt only with the modification of the profile shift coefficient. A computer program has been developed to automatically determine the repair alternatives under two goals: minimize the stock removal or maximize gear tooth strength.

Departments

Challenges Tempered by Optimism (Publishers Page)
For many of us, 2016 was a rough year — and the results of our annual State of the Gear Industry Survey show it. 40% of respondents indicated their companies had cut staff, while only 27% indicated an increase in employment. Clearly, there have been widespread cutbacks.

AGMA: Delivering Value in New and Measurable Ways (Voices)
When I first met the leaders of the gearing industry in April 2016 at AGMA’s 100th Anniversary Celebration, I did my best imitation of Joe Namath, who famously predicted a Super Bowl victory for his New York Jets: I guaranteed we would reach our 101st year!

Problem Solving for the Gear Industry (Voices)
If you’ve got a gear performance problem, the Gear Research Institute (GRI) is here to help you. Since inception in 1982, GRI has been a primarily industry sponsored, experimentation driven research facility. Whether establishing the fatigue life of gears or evaluating the impact of manufacturing processes on the performance of gears, GRI has pioneered methods and procedures for characterizing such properties that are accepted by the aerospace, vehicle and other industry sectors.

Product News (Product News)
News about all of the upcoming products int he industry.

Best Tooling for Hard Milling a Gear Tooth on 5-Axis Machining Center (Ask the Expert)
What is the best tooling to use when hard milling a gear tooth on a 5-axis machining center? And what makes it the best? We have just bought a DMG Mori mono-block and are not getting the finishes at the cycle times we require.

Calendar (Events)
Calendar of events.

Industry News (Industry News)
News from around the Gear Industry

Swiss Watchmaking - with 3-D Printing (Addendum)
For centuries, Switzerland has been considered home to the greatest watchmakers in the world. Works of fine beauty and optimal precision have been the norm there seemingly forever.