State of the Union

At the last Technical Division Executive Committee (TDEC) meeting, beyond reviewing all the excellent Fall Technical Meeting track 1 abstracts, the committee was busy approving three new projects:

• A limited scope revision to ANSI/ABMA 10A Metal Balls for Unground Bearings and Other Uses to make some corrections found during a recent reaffirmation ballot.
• A major revision to AGMA 913 Method for Specifying the Geometry of Spur and Helical Gears. This revision will not only revise the title to Basic Rack and Profile Shift for Cylindrical Gearing (temporary title) but will also gather similar topics from several other documents that discuss a basic rack and profile into a single document.
• A brand-new document, ABMA 602, will focus on bearing testing and is aimed at bearing users to be able to understand what to do to compare a manufacturer or supplier to a baseline. The document will cover the primary fatigue characteristics and will also include mention of other types of testing, such as lubrication, noise, temperature, geometry, and material.

But that is not all! Our technical volunteers have been diligently working on many other projects.

Accuracy and Nomenclature:

• AGMA 951-Axx, Gear Surface Texture Measurement
• AGMA 1010-Gxx, Appearance of Gear Teeth—Terminology of Wear and Failure

Aerospace Gearing:

• AGMA 926-Dxx, Recommended Practice for Carburized Aerospace Gearing

Bearings:

• ABMA B3.1, Rolling Element Bearings—Aircraft Engine, Engine Gearbox, and Accessory Applications—Eddy Current Inspection
• ABMA B3.2, Rolling Element Bearings—Aircraft Engine, Engine Gearbox, and Accessory Applications—Surface Visual Inspection
• ABMA 601-Axx Atlas of Roller Bearing Failures in Wind Turbines

Cutting Tools:

• AGMA 1104-Bxx, Tolerance Specification for Shaper Cutters

Cylindrical Gear Rating:

• AGMA 908-Cxx, Geometry Factors for Determining the Pitting Resistance and Bending Strength of Spur, Helical and Herringbone Gear Teeth
• AGMA 936-Axx, Calculated Bending Load Capacity and Pitting Resistance of Powder Metallurgy, PM, External Spur and Helical Gears

Flexible couplings:

• AGMA 9002-Dxx/9102-Dxx, Bores and Keyways for Flexible Couplings
• AGMA 9013-Exx/9113-Exx, Flexible Couplings—Potential Unbalance and Mass Elastic Properties

Gear Applications:

• AGMA 948-Axx, Electrified Vehicle Drivetrains
• AGMA 949-Axx, Guidelines for Repair of Industrial Gearboxes

Metallurgy and Materials:

• AGMA 2104-Dxx 924-Axx, Gear Materials, Heat Treatment and Processing Manual

Sound and Vibration:

• AGMA 919-2-Axx, Condition Monitoring and Diagnostics of Gear Units and Open Gears: Part II—Applications and Advanced Analyses

Wind Turbines:

• AGMA 950-Axx, Wind Turbine Main Gearbox Condition Assessment based on Visual Inspection

Wormgearing:

• AGMA 6122-Exx, Standard for Design Manual for Cylindrical Wormgearing

If you’re counting, that’s twenty open projects! I think we have some tired volunteers! Speaking of that, if you or someone in your organization is interested in learning about any one of these topics, there are only two requirements for being on a technical committee or working group:

1. Be a member of MPMA.
2. Have an interest in the subject and commitment to participate.

There are many benefits to being involved in a standardization project, both for the participant and MPMA. There’s not a training opportunity that is much better, and the networking connections are invaluable. MPMA and the entire US bearing and gear industries benefit from having the latest and greatest technology represented in our documents.

So, that’s the basics of what is going on in the MPMA Technical Division. Sorry, got to go. So many things to do!