Micropitting, pitting and wear are typical gear failure modes that can occur on the flanks of slowly operated and highly stressed internal gears. However, the calculation methods for the flank load-carrying capacity have mainly been established on the basis of experimental investigations of external gears. This paper describes the design and functionality of the newly developed test rigs for internal gears and shows basic results of the theoretical studies. It furthermore presents basic examples of experimental test results.

The objective of this study was to investigate the limits concerning possible reduction of lubricant quantity in gears that could be tolerated without detrimental effects on their load carrying capacity.