STRESSES IN SPUR GEAR

Lecture-02

Shummaila Rasheed
Lecturer

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Capital University of Science and Technology
 Modes of failure – stresses in Spur gear

There are two modes of failure that affect gear teeth:

Fatigue fracture - due to fluctuating bending stresses at the root of the tooth.
Surface fatigue - (pitting) of the tooth surfaces- Abrasion & Adhesion - scuffing or scoring .

-Both failure modes must be checked when designing gears.

-Fatigue fracture due to bending can be prevented with proper design by keeping the stress
state within the modified-Goodman line for the material.
-Most heavily loaded gears are made of ferrous materials that do have a bending endurance
limit, infinite life can be obtained for the bending loads.
-Materials do not exhibit an endurance limit for repeated surface contact. Therefore, it is not
possible to design gears for infinite life against surface failure.
 Bending Stresses

THE LEWIS EQUATION: The first useful equation for the bending stress in a gear tooth
was developed by W. Lewis in 1892.
-tooth is a cantilever beam with its critical section at the root. Starting with the equation for
bending stress in a cantilever beam, he derived what is now known as the Lewis equation:

Where, Wt is the tangential force on the tooth, pd the diametral pitch, F the face width,
and Y is a dimensionless geometry factor - Lewis form factor - tooth geometry into account
to determine its effective strength at the root fillet.
-Table of Y values for gears of different pressure angles and numbers of teeth.
Note: The radial component Wr is ignored, as it puts the tooth in compression and acts to
reduce the dangerous tensile bending stress.
 Cont’d…

-The Lewis equation is no longer used in its original form, but it serves as the basis for a
more modern version as defined by the AGMA and based on the work of Lewis and many
others. The principles of Lewis’ equation are still valid, but it has been augmented with
additional factors to account for failure mechanisms only later understood.
-His form factor Y has been supplanted by a new geometry factor J, which includes the
effects of stress concentration at the root fillet.
-Stress concentration was still waiting to be discovered in Lewis’s day.
 THE AGMA BENDING STRESS EQUATION

-as defined in AGMA Standard 2001-B88 is valid only for certain assumptions about the
tooth and gear-mesh geometry:

1. The contact ratio is between 1 and 2.

2. There is no interference between the tips and root fillets of mating teeth and no
undercutting of teeth above the theoretical start of the active profile.
3. No teeth are pointed.
4. There is nonzero backlash.
5. The root fillets are standard, assumed smooth, and produced by a generating process.
6. The friction forces are neglected
 Cont’d…
1. The contact ratio is between 1 and 2: it assumption comes about in spite of the theoretical
desirability of high contact ratios because the actual load sharing between teeth in such
situations is subject to factors of tooth accuracy and stiffness that are difficult to predict,
making the problem indeterminate.
2. Interference & Undercutting: it limits the analysis to pinion-gear combinations that obey
the minimum tooth limitations described in Tables 12-4 and 12-5.
 Cont’d…
-If smaller numbers of teeth are needed for packaging purposes, then unequal-addendum teeth
should be used and the AGMA method applied with the appropriate geometry factor J used in
the equation.
Cont’d…
 Cont’d…
3. No teeth are pointed: It deals with the limits of unequal-addendum pinions.

4. Non-Zero backlash: It recognizes that gears with zero backlash will not run freely together
due to excessive friction.

5. The root fillets are standard: Accounts for the use of stress-concentration factors for root
fillets
-Valid only for external gear teeth.
-Internal gear teeth is sufficiently different to require another approach to the calculation of
bending stresses.
 BENDING STRENGTH GEOMETRY FACTOR J

-The geometry factor J can be calculated from a complicated algorithm defined in AGMA
Standard 908-B89.
-The same standard also provides tables of J factors for standard,
• full-depth teeth
• 25% and 50% unequal-addendum teeth
• 14.5, 20, and 25° pressure angles
-These J factors vary with the numbers of teeth on the pinion and gear and are given only for a
range of combinations which obey assumption 2 above.
-The AGMA recommends that tooth-number combinations that create interference be avoided.
 Cont’d…

-Tables 12-8 through 12-15* replicate the AGMA geometry factors J for a subset of the gear-
tooth combinations covered in the standard.
-In these eight tables, two gear-tooth designs are covered (the full-depth tooth, and the 25%-
long-addendum tooth), each for two pressure angles (20 and 25°), and both for tip loading
and for loading at the highest point of single-tooth contact (HPSTC)
-Note in these tables that the J factors are different for the pinion and gear (labeled P and G) in
each mesh combination. This results in different bending stress levels in the pinion teeth than in
the gear teeth.
-The letter U in the tables indicates that undercutting occurs with that combination due to
interference between the tip of the gear tooth and the root-flank of the pinion.
 Cont’d…

-The choice between tip-loaded or HPSTC , J factors should be based on the manufacturing
precision of the gearset.
-If the manufacturing tolerances are small (high-precision gears), then load sharing between
the teeth can be assumed and the HPSTC tables used. If not, then it is likely that only one pair
of teeth will take all the load at the tip in the worst case.
 Cont’d…
-If the contact ratio is 1, then one tooth is leaving contact just as the next is beginning contact.
This is undesirable, because slight errors in the tooth spacing will cause oscillations in the
velocity, vibration, and noise.
-In addition, the load will be applied at the tip of the tooth, creating the largest possible
bending moment.
-At larger contact ratios than 1, there is the possibility of load sharing among the teeth.
-For contact ratios between 1 and 2, which are common for spur gears, there will still be times
during the mesh when one pair of teeth will be taking the entire load. However, these will
occur toward the center of the mesh region where the load is applied at a lower position on the
tooth, rather than at its tip. This point is called the highest point of single-tooth contact or
HPSTC.
-The minimum acceptable contact ratio for smooth operation is 1.2.
-A minimum contact ratio of 1.4 is preferred, and larger is better.
-Most spur gearsets will have contact ratios between 1.4 and 2.