Gear Fatigue Life Research Articles

Effect of Al Element on Retained Austenite, Residual Compressive Stress, and Contact Fatigue Life of Carburized and Quenched 20MnCr5 Steel Gear

To improve the contact fatigue life of gears, we studied the effect of adding a certain proportion of the Al element to a 20MnCr5 steel FZG spur gear under different heat treatment processes, characterizing the retained austenite and residual compressive stress on the tooth surface. The stability of the microstructure grain size on the gear surface under different heat treatment processes was studied, and the surface microstructure, phase structure, and composition of the gear were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD). The changes in the retained austenite content and grain size on the gear surface at a microscale of 2–100 μm were investigated. In addition, this study revealed the effect of adding the Al element and the optimization of the carburizing and quenching process on the residual compressive stress on the gear surface at a depth range of 200–280 μm. The effect of higher residual compressive stress and fewer non-metallic inclusions on the gear surface on the stress intensity factor of fatigue crack propagation was considered, along with the effect of deeper hardened layers on the improvement in wear resistance. The experiments in this study significantly improved the contact fatigue life of 20MnCr5 steel gears.

Contact fatigue life prediction of PEEK gears based on CTAB-GAN data augmentation

The contact fatigue life of PEEK gears is a critical fundamental data for the design of load-carrying capacity, which is significantly influenced by many factors such as material type, operating temperature, and loading level. Temperature effects must be considered during contact fatigue life prediction of PEEK gears. This article presents a predictive model for contact fatigue life of PEEK gears, utilizing the CTAB-GAN data augmentation. The CTAB-GAN data augmentation model expands the experimental dataset of contact fatigue lives of oil-lubricated PEEK gears. Then, a predictive formula was derived to estimate contact fatigue life of oil-lubricated PEEK gears considering the temperature dependent effect. Results revealed that the predicted fatigue lives of PEEK gears under different loading and temperature conditions based on the enhanced dataset are within a two-fold scatter band. The mean square error of predicted lives reduces by 30% compared to the life formula based on the original experimental data set. Furthermore a quantitative analysis was conducted on the influence of operating temperature and stress on the fatigue life of PEEK gears.

Experimental Study on Vibration and Noise Reduction of Gear Transmission System Based on ISFD

Gear transmission systems are widely used in ship propulsion systems, but, during operations, they produce serious vibration and noise problems, reducing the fatigue life of gears and affecting the performance of ships and the comfort of operators. Taking into account the complex frequencies and vibration components of gear transmission systems, this study conducted wide-band vibration suppression and noise reduction research on a gear transmission system using an integral squeeze film damper (ISFD), providing a novel approach for reducing vibration and noise in gear transmission systems. By conducting a simulation analysis and numerical calculations, the ISFD was analyzed via a static analysis and a dynamic analysis. We developed an experimental platform for reducing vibration and noise in gear transmission systems using sliding bearings, and the experiments were conducted under different speed and load conditions to study the vibration suppression and noise reduction of gears based on the ISFD. The experimental results show that the ISFD has good vibration suppression capabilities for gears at different speeds, with a horizontal vibration reduction of 75.44% and a vertical vibration reduction of 68.48% at 2400 r/min. The ISFD has wide-band vibration suppression capabilities, especially for mesh frequency and twice-mesh frequency, with a vibration reduction of 86.96% or more. Moreover, the ISFD has good vibration suppression capabilities for gears at different load torques, with a reduction of more than 35% in all directions. In addition, the ISFD also has noise reduction capabilities, reducing the gears’ noise by 1.92 dB at different speeds.

Analysis of crack propagation and life estimation of spiral bevel gears with root cracks

Abstract In order to study the effect of tooth root cracks on the fatigue life of spiral bevel gears, a certain spiral bevel gear was taken as the research object, and the mechanism of tooth root fatigue cracks was analyzed based on crack propagation theory; By combining the extended finite element method and the level set method, an initial crack propagation finite element model is established. The crack location of the gear teeth is determined through static analysis of the gear pair, and the influence of alternating loads on the initiation and propagation life of tooth surface cracks is studied. The analysis results indicate that the number of load cycles required for each crack propagation after its first occurrence gradually decreases; The crack propagation path of gear cracks under fatigue load is consistent with the actual tooth surface fracture surface; Realize life estimation from crack propagation to fracture failure.

Research on gear life reliability analysis based on accelerated life test

AbstractAs one of the key components of marine reducer, the life reliability of gear is of great significance to the safe operation of the reducer and even the whole transmission system. However, due to economic and testing constraints, executing extensive fatigue life tests on complex and costly gears presents a formidable challenge, resulting in inadequate reliability assessments. In this paper, the gear life reliability analysis method based on the accelerated life test is proposed. By conducting the gear bending fatigue accelerated life test, the life distribution and failure mechanism are determined based on the accelerated life data. Furthermore, the gear life distribution parameters and acceleration model are solved by least squared method. This allows us to derive a reliability index specific to the service conditions, facilitating the evaluation of gear life reliability. The method proposed in this paper provides data and theoretical support for the accelerated life tests, lays a foundation for the gear reliability evaluation under small samples, and improves the efficiency of the gear fatigue life evaluation. It has significant engineering significance in saving test costs, reducing test times and shortening development cycle.

The effect of shot peening on the contact fatigue performance of C40 steel gears after laser surface melting

In this paper, shot peening (SP) was employed as a post-processing technique for the laser surface melted (LSMed) gear. The aim was to improve the contact fatigue performance of laser surface melting+shot peened (LSMSPed) gears. The microstructure, surface roughness, residual stress, microhardness of C40 steel gears before and after SP treatment were characterized using scanning electron microscopy, x-ray diffraction stress analyzer, contour measuring instrument, and hardness tester. Fatigue test of gear was carried out with a Forschungsstelle für Zahnräder und Getriebebau (FZG) testing machine. Following the laser surface melting (LSM) treatment, a molten layer was observed on the gear teeth surface. The experimental results indicated that SP induced a hardened layer with a certain thickness and plastic deformation on the surface of LSMed gears. Importantly, as the SP parameters increased, there’s a corresponding reduction in both the average grain diameter and the maximum grain diameter. The reduction was most pronounced when the shot diameter reached its maximum value. It’s worth noting that once the optimal threshold for SP parameters is surpassed, the residual compressive stress and microhardness on the LSMSPed gear surface do not exhibit a continuous growth trend. Furthermore, the rise in SP parameters resulted in a gradual increase in the surface roughness of LSMSPed gears, albeit to varying degrees. In light of the combined effects of grain refinement, residual compressive stress, microhardness, and surface roughness, the contact fatigue performance of LSMSPed gears improved with increasing SP parameters. Notably, when comparing the contact fatigue life of LSMed gears with that of LSMSPed gears, we observed a substantial enhancement. However, it’s essential to highlight that when the shot diameter reaches its maximum value, the contact fatigue life of the LSMSPed gear, somewhat unexpectedly, decreased. It emphasized to a certain extent the influence of surface roughness on the contact fatigue performance of LSMSP gears.

Comparative analysis of dynamic load characteristics of artillery steering gear based on different MBD methods

The multi-body dynamics analysis model of the steering gear of a certain type of artillery was established. The dynamic load characteristics of the output gear of the steering gear motor and its driven gear under the given speed and load conditions were calculated based on the three different MBD analysis methods, such as the speed, meshing force, and contact stress. Through the comparative analysis, it was concluded that the calculation results of rigid-flexible coupling analysis were closer to the theoretical value and the fluctuation range was smaller, which provides reference and basis for the prediction of gear fatigue life and the optimization design under dynamic load conditions.

Probabilistic gear fatigue life prediction based on physics-informed transformer

Gear fatigue testing is a complex process that is both time-consuming and labor-intensive, and often produces dispersed results. Traditional statistical analysis methods for probability-stress-life (P-S-N) and fatigue limit require large sample sizes. This study proposes a novel probabilistic gear fatigue life prediction method based on physics-informed Transformer. This method seeks to overcome the limitations of traditional statistical analysis methods and data-driven models by integrating stress-life physical knowledge with the data-driven model. Specifically, based on the obtained gear fatigue limit, this method predicts the probabilistic fatigue life at each stress level by using only a set of probability distribution characteristics of fatigue life under constant amplitude load. The proposed method was validated through multiple cases of gear bending fatigue tests with varying materials, treatments, and geometries, and prediction errors were within an error factor of 2. Compared with other traditional machine learning methods, the accuracy of life prediction was improved by 19.74% to 29.44%. Additionally, feature analysis was conducted to identify key parameters influencing the accuracy of probabilistic fatigue life prediction and provide a range of optimal parameter selection, which is expected to significantly promote the efficiency of fatigue basic data construction in the gear industry.

Fatigue life and transmission efficiency prediction of marine timing gears under 3D mixed lubrication state

The timing gears are the core transmission components of marine diesel engine, whose working conditions are complex and harsh, transient and coupled with the microscopic lubrication state, meshing in the mixed lubrication environment with lubrication-contact coexistence, local asperity contact brings stress concentration, further affects the fatigue life and friction loss. In this study, based on a three-dimensional (3D) line-contact mixed lubrication model, dynamic subsurface stress calculation, fatigue life prediction, and friction loss power study were carried out on timing gears, taking into account transient operating conditions and actual surface roughness. For the established simulation model, an equivalent simulation test of line-contact friction of timing gears was carried out, which can realize the measurement of friction coefficient under the condition of different slip-roll ratios, and make up for the deficiency that the traditional test equipment can only carry out the test under the fixed slip-roll ratio. Although the gear meshing process can only be simulated by the disc specimen due to the limitation of the specimen form, this limitation is similar to the simplified form of the simulation model, which can meet the needs of the verification test. The influence of structure and material on the lubrication state, fatigue life and friction power consumption are studied, which provide theoretical guidance for the tribological optimization design and reliability analysis for the marine timing gears.

A unified model for bending fatigue life prediction of surface-hardened gears

The surface hardness and residual stress (RS) states significantly affect gear bending fatigue, and further mainly determines the reliability of the high-end equipment such as helicopters and electric automobiles. To date, there has been limited research focusing on the study of the quantitative connection between fatigue life and such surface integrity characteristics. In this paper, a damage-coupled gear bending fatigue model based on the continuum damage theory is established to calculate the gear fatigue life considering RS and hardness states. Then, unified gear bending stress-life (S-N) equations originating from the Basquin equation are derived to evaluate the quantitative effects of RS and hardness on gear bending fatigue life. The RS and hardness impact coefficients in unified equations are determined using the fatigue data obtained from a gear damage-coupled model. The unified gear bending S-N curves are verified using the experimental fatigue life data of shot peening and un-peening gears. These lead to the establishment of the unified equation integrating both the residual stress and surface hardness states for 18CrNiMo7-6 gear.

Crack propagation and fatigue life estimation of spur gear with and without spalling failure

Spur gears are most commonly used to transmit power, and speed variation from one shaft to another shaft. Spalling more frequently occurs surface fault in the gears and sometimes it causes severe damage to the gear tooth. This paper focuses on the effect of spalling on the fatigue life of spur gear. The simulation study is conducted in two parts. In the first part, the Johnson-Cook Damage model is used for the spall generation on the tooth surface. After that, the spalling results are imported as input into the crack initiation /crack propagation model and calculated the rate of crack growth of fatigue crack is based on Paris law implemented in user-defined subroutine Abaqus software. User-defined subroutine code is also validated with the comparison of the numerical and experimental results available in the literature. Cracks with different initial lengths are placed in the deeper cavities of spalling and the crack propagation analysis is conducted using XFEM. The study is conducted for four different backup ratios with cracks of three different initial lengths. The fatigue crack growth life of spur gears is investigated using different crack lengths and backup ratios. Further, a comparison has been made between the fatigue life of a spur having a spalling fault with the fatigue life of spur gear that does not have spalling fault present on its surface. It has also been found in this study that spur gear having cracks originating from the spall region have a less fatigue life as compared to the spur gear without spalling. With the increase in backup ratio from 0.3 to 3.3, an exponential increase in fatigue life is observed. However, the fatigue life of spur gear without the presence of spalling fault has higher fatigue for all backup ratios.

Effect of manganese phosphate conversion coating with different crystal sizes on fatigue life of 20MnCrS5 steel helical gears

Fatigue pitting is the main failure form of automatic transmission gear at present. In this paper, the contact stress of the tooth surface under different coefficients of friction is calculated by the finite element method. The contact fatigue test and transmission performance were carried out on the 20MnCrS5 helical gears after carburizing with different thicknesses of manganese phosphate conversion coating by a special gear test bench. And the influence of the solid lubricating coating on gear contact fatigue performance was deeply discussed. The results show that the contact fatigue life of the gear treated by manganese phosphate conversion coating is improved by more than 100 %, and the manganese phosphate coated gear with a thickness of 12 µm has a higher fatigue life.

Gear contact fatigue life prediction based on transfer learning

The gear contact fatigue test is characterised by extraordinarily high costs and a long period of testing. A transfer learning algorithm was applied to develop a gear contact fatigue life prediction strategy to fully use other low-cost fatigue test data, such as twin-disc test data. The twin-disc contact fatigue test data were incorporated into the neural network model to explore the combined effects of surface integrity and stress level on fatigue life, which was further transferred for gear contact fatigue life prediction. The results indicate that this method enables an effective gear fatigue life prediction under minor gear sample conditions. With a small sample amount of 7, the prediction error in the fatigue life of the model with transfer learning is 46.33%, while the typical back-propagation neural network (BPNN) model without transfer learning is 101.66%. To control life prediction error to within 50%, the model without transfer learning requires at least 17 gear samples, while the transfer model calls for only 7 gear samples. The proposed data transfer learning framework can be used to predict the gear contact fatigue S-N curve under minor sample conditions and is straightforwardly applied to extended applications.

A modified model of Lundberg-Palmgren rolling contact fatigue formula considering the effects of surface treatments

The Lundberg-Palmgren (L-P) fatigue life formula, as a statistical fatigue theory, has been widely used in the industry. However, its direct applicability is limited to the components treated by surface strengthening technologies. Rolling contact fatigue tests and surface integrity measurements of American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) 9310 rollers with several surface treatments were performed to address this issue. Based on these results, a modified L-P fatigue model was proposed, enabling the consideration of surface modification including surface roughness, residual stress, and hardening introduced by different surface treatments. Compared with the original L-P fatigue formula, its results are more accurate for surface strengthened specimens. Furthermore, this method can assess the contact fatigue life of gears treated by surface strengthening techniques.

A novel prediction approach of polymer gear contact fatigue based on a WGAN‐XGBoost model

AbstractPolymer gears have long been used on power transmissions with the fundamental durability data, including fatigue S‐N curves, yielding important data informing reliable and compact designs. This paper proposed a prediction method for polyformaldehyde (POM) gear fatigue life based on the innovative WGAN‐XGBoost algorithm. The findings generated herein revealed that the proposed method performs well in terms of prediction accuracy. The predicted fatigue lives, analyzed under different loading conditions, were within 1.5 times dispersion band compared with experimental results. Furthermore, based upon the enhanced fatigue dataset, a thermo‐mechanical coupled prediction formula for POM gear contact fatigue life was proposed. These findings offered a new approach for high‐power density design of polymer gears.

Fatigue performances of helicopter gears

Abstract Gears are widely used machine elements to transmit power and motion in the industry. During the power transmission, the gears are subjected to cyclic loads. Thus the fatigue resistance of the gears should be deeply investigated. In particular, this issue is gaining much more importance in the space and aviation fields. In this study, the fatigue life of gears made of 9310-VIM-VAR steel used in the aviation field was determined experimentally, and the crack propagation paths obtained were numerically verified. To this end, the SAE J1619 standard single-tooth bending fatigue test apparatus was redesigned and manufactured in order to adapt it to the helicopter gears. Totally 28 single-tooth bending fatigue tests were carried out for various loading conditions. Accordingly, the S–N curves for the helicopter gears were created. The experimental results were verified by the finite element fatigue crack propagation analysis in terms of the initial crack location, crack initialization angle, and crack propagation paths. Conducted experiments and numerical studies are found as compatible with each other.

Numerical and experimental research of helical gear contact stress considering the influence of friction

Helical gears are widely used in various mechanical transmissions. Thus, analysing gear contact stresses is crucial to improve the fatigue limit and life of gears. In this paper, the contact stress of helical gear is analyzed by finite element simulation and experimental verification. The effect of coefficient of friction on the contact stress of helical gears is analysed, with given coefficients of friction. The following conclusions can be drawn through simulation and test. 1) The contact stress increases with the coefficient of friction in the early stage of meshing. 2) The contact stress decreases with the increase in the coefficient of friction in the late stage of meshing. 3) The gear contact fatigue test shows that the location of fatigue pitting on the tooth surface is consistent with that of the simulated maximum stress point. The friction-reducing coating on the gear surface can decrease the coefficient of friction between the tooth surfaces and thus effectively improve the gear contact fatigue life.

Development of the fatigue life model for plastic gears of automotive actuators under vibration

In this research, a series of analysis and validation were conducted for estimating the fatigue life of plastic gears. A jig for depicting assembly state in vehicle actuators was made based on failure mechanism analysis. A vibration test for detecting the resonance frequency was performed using a frequency range specified in the ISO standard and it is confirmed that a resonance point occurs within a range generated by an engine operation. Finite element analysis was conducted to obtain the maximum stress in the vibration test applied with a sinusoidal sweep signal and the cycles to failure were calculated through the accelerated testing. The fatigue life model for plastic gears was established by deriving an S-N curve on the relation between stress and cycles to failure. The purpose of this study is to propose a design guideline for improving the reliability of vehicle actuators through the establishment of a fatigue life model for the elemental components.

Investigation and optimization of hypoid gear micro-geometry parameters and axle deflections to improve the contact stress distribution and fatigue life of hypoid gears

The automotive industry always demands more torque per kilogramme of weight. On the other hand, there is always a growing demand for increased warranty kilometres for customers. This puts increased pressure on the life of the drive axle, which is the major load and torque-carrying member in commercial vehicles. Drive head unit is a crucial contributor to this aim. This paper focuses on the work done towards the above targets wherein advanced tools helped to achieve them in the minimum time. Due attention is given to the hypoid gear system to sustain higher stress because of the heavy torque demanded by the application. It is accomplished by the optimum design of the gear tooth profile and system design. Gear durability is a major concern in heavily loaded axles. To have an optimum design with higher performance torque is a key challenge. The paper talks about the challenges overcome during the design, development, and validation of a single-reduction large-size gear axle to replace the hub reduction rear axle. It demands a better understanding of gear tooth and system behavior, which was analyzed by advanced software tools and measurement machines. The same is validated on the test bench, and the results are discussed.

Computational model for bending fatigue life and failure location prediction of surface-hardened running gears

In this paper, a numerical model is proposed to predict the location and the number of cycles for bending fatigue failure of surface-hardened gears. The predictions are validated against experimental results. Linear-elastic stresses and strains obtained by a finite element simulation are imported into the fatigue model. Bending fatigue lives at the observed tooth root region are estimated based on the multilayer method, hardness method, and strain-life approach. The critical plane approach is employed due to non-proportional loading. Good agreement between actual and predicted bending fatigue lives was observed, as well as between the estimated and actual subsurface failure location.