Tribo Losses in Transmission

Vehicle Tribology
1 Tribological Losses and Engine Design

Tribological Losses and Design of Transmission
Assemblies
2
 Introduction
 Generalization of gear tribo-design
 Lubrication regimes
 Gear failure due to scuffing
 Critical temperature factor
 Minimum film thickness factor
 Gear pitting
 Surface originated pitting
 Evaluation of surface pitting risk
 Subsurface originated pitting
 Evaluation of subsurface pitting risk
 Assessment of gear wear
 Design aspect of gear lubrication
 Efficiency of gears and analysis of friction losses
Assemblies
3 Introduction
 The transmission systems are the assemblies and
subassemblies transferring the power and torque from engine
to the wheels
 The transmission system consists of:

 Clutch system
 Gear box
 Transfer case
 Propeller shaft
 Differential
 Final drive
 Axles.
 Wheels
Assemblies
4 Introduction
 All the above systems are subjected to rotary motion and are
effected by frictional losses.
 Thus, power losses are inevitable in transmission system.
 If we use tribological solutions to the design of these
assemblies and optimize their lubrication by maintaining the
optimum oil film thickness, we can minimize power losses.
 Successful operation of gears requires not only the enough
strength against breakage of teeth, but also the teeth should
maintain their precise geometry for long life.
Assemblies
5 Generalization of gear tribo-design
 In gear tooth analysis, we cannot assume that two mating
surfaces of constant radii of curvature and an elastic
homogeneous isotropic stress-free material.
 The gear tooth profile has a continuously varying radius of
curvature
 We cannot assume that the material is elastic because it will
certainly break if the resulting shear stress exceeds the shear
yield strength of the material.
 Since the gears are designed to

transmit power through contact, then
they must be suitably lubricated to
reduce friction losses and for longer life
of the gears.
Assemblies
6 Lubrication Regime.
Boundary lubrication. Characterised by very low velocity so
that virtually no elastohydrodynamic lubricating film can be formed
between the surfaces in contact. The friction and wear in gear is
mainly controlled by the absorbed surface film which is of a few
nanometers thick, formed by lubricant and its additives.
Mixed lubrication. Predominant when the velocity of the gear is
enough to develop a lubricating film, but its thickness does not
provide full separation of the contacting surfaces. As a result direct
contact between highest asperities takes place which may lead to
accelerated running in. The magnitude of the frictional force and the
rate of wear are significantly lower than in the case of boundary
lubrication.
Thick film lubrication. When the speed is sufficiently high, an
elstohydrodynamic film is developed. The thickness is adequate to
separate completely the surfaces of two teeth in mesh.
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In principle all the frictional resistances come from the shearing of

the elastohydrodynamic film. The potential wear sources are those
due to abrasive particles contaminating the oil and the surface
fatigue resulting in pitting.
Each lubrication regime can be assigned a characteristic value of
Friction Coefficient.
 (a) Boundary lubrication: Friction coefficient- common – 0.10
to 0.20. If due care is taken for surface finish and a good
boundary lubrication, then the range will be 0.05 – 0.10.
 (b) Mixed lubrication (Friction Coefficient) : 0.04 – 0.07
 (c) Thick film lubrication (Friction Coefficient) : 0.01 – 0.04
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8 Lubrication Regime
The three lubrication regimes are shown in the graph.
Q is average intensity of loading on the surface.

Assemblies
 The different regimes are defined in terms of load intensity (Q)

and the velocity measured at the pitch diameter.
 The load intensity applied is Q factor (the average intensity of
loading on the surface).
 The other important variable is velocity measured at the pitch
diameter.
 The upper limit represents the approximate highest intensity of
tooth loading that the case-hardened gears can carry.
 It also represents the surface fatigue strength upper limit for
relatively good design.
Assemblies
10
Gear Failure due to Scuffing
Typical failure modes of gears are surface fatigue, scoring, pitting,

scuffing (severe form of adhesive wear), abrasion, corrosive wear,
and tooth breakage.
The dominant failure mode for a well-lubricated gear pair is surface
fatigue. Because of higher slip or sliding in gears as compared to
rolling element bearings, the failure mode is surface fatigue rather
than subsurface fatigue.
When the elastohydrodynamic lubricant film is not sufficiently thick,
metal-to-metal contact occurs, leading to other failure modes such
as scuffing, a severe form of adhesive wear.
The essential material requirements for gears are adequate bending
fatigue strength and resistance to surface fatigue, adequate
toughness to withstand the impact loads, adequate resistance to
scuffing, and adequate resistance to abrasive wear.
Assemblies
11
Gear Failure due to Scuffing
 Scuffing is defined as excessive damage characterized by the
formation of local welds between the sliding surfaces.
 For metallic surfaces to weld together the intervening fluid films
must become disrupted and subsequently metal to metal contact
must take place through the disrupted film.
 Scuffing is a serious form of surface failure that can affect
gears running at high speeds or at high temperatures.
 In many situations scuffing is linked to physical failure of the
EHL mechanism.
 To avoid scuffing problems, gear designers often specify
chemically active extreme pressure (EP) additives in the
lubricating oil. Some form of surface treatment for the gears
such as case-carburising/hardening, nitriding or coatings, or
a combination of these will also reduce scuffing.
Assemblies
12
Critical temperature factor
 Generally scuffing is activated when the temperature in the
contact zone exceeds a certain critical temperature.
 Failure of the lubricant film due to very high temperature
developed at the points of real contact between two teeth in mesh
is common.
 Contacting surface asperities form instantaneous adhesive
junctions which are immediately ruptured because of the rolling and
sliding of the meshing gears.
 A severe form of scuffing is usually accompanied by considerable
wear and as a result of that the teeth become overloaded around
the pitch line
Assemblies
13
Critical temperature factor
 A commonly used design procedure to avoid scuffing due to
excessively high temperature in the contact zone depends on the
flash temperature estimation of the lubricant oil, which in turn is
compared with the maximum allowable temperature for a given oil.
 The approximate formula used to estimate flash temperature is
available.
Assemblies
14
Minimum film thickness factor
 The idea of the minimum thickness of the lubricant film is based
on the premise that it should be greater than the average surface
roughness to avoid scuffing.
 Conditions facilitating scuffing are created when the thickness of
the lubricant film is equal to or less than the average surface
roughness.
 It is customary to denote the ratio of minimum thickness of the film
to surface roughness by
where Ra = (R1 + R2)/2, R1 -root mean square (r.m.s.) finish

of the first gear of a pair and R2 -finish in r.m.s. of a second
gear of a pair.
Assemblies
15 Minimum film thickness factor
 Knowing both the thickness of the oil film, and the roughness of
the gear tooth surfaces, the parameter λ can be determined.
 It is assumed for a thick film lubrication regime, no danger of
scuffing, when λ is greater than 1.2.
 In the case when λ is less than 1.0, some steps should be taken
to secure the gear set against a high probability of scoring.
 Scoring is another predominant failure mode which is due to
combination of two distinct activities:
First, lubrication failure in the contact region and
Second, establishment of metal to metal contact.
Later on, welding and tearing action resulting from metallic
contact removes the metal rapidly and continuously even if the
load, speed and oil temperature remain at the same level.
Assemblies
16 Gear Pitting
Pitting is a surface fatigue failure of the gear tooth. It occurs due
to repeated loading of tooth surface and the contact stress
exceeding the surface fatigue strength of the material.
Material in the fatigue region gets removed and a pit is formed.
The pit itself will cause stress concentration and soon the pitting
spreads to adjacent region till the whole surface is covered.
 Subsequently, higher impact load resulting from pitting may
cause fracture of already weakened tooth. However, the failure
process takes place over millions of cycles of running. There are
two types of pitting, initial and progressive.
The pitting is most likely to be found on the pitch line, whereas
the scuffing is found in the addendum and dedendum regions.
Assemblies
17 Gear Pitting
Initial pitting occurs during running-in period wherein oversized

peaks on the surface get dislodged and small pits of 25 to 50 μm
deep are formed just below pitch line region. Later on, the load
gets distributed over a larger surface area and the stress comes
down which may stop the progress of pitting.
Gear Pitting
Assemblies
18 Gear Pitting
 A pit being a small crater left in the surface as a result of a

fragment of metal falling out.
 Pitting may also be due to the lubricant which is forced into the
surface cracks by the passage of very high pressure and the
lubricant then acts as a wedge to help open up and extend the
cracks.
 It is known from experiment that smooth surfaces pit less
readily.
 It is also found from tests runs, the surface roughness to the oil
film thickness, was the dominant parameter.
Assemblies
19 Surface originated pitting
 It has been found that in the case of hardened gears (hardness in
the range of 180 to 400 HB) pitting usually originates at the surface
of the tooth.
Due to the stresses developed in the contact zone, small cracks
are created on the surface.
These cracks grow inwards and after reaching some depth they
eventually turn upwards.
As a result of that small metal particles are detached from the bulk
and fall out.
In most cases pitting is initiated in the vicinity of the pitch line.
At the pitch point there is only pure rolling while above and below it
there is an increasing amount of sliding along with rolling.
Assemblies
20
Surface originated pitting
Assemblies
21 Surface originated pitting
Experiments suggest that pitting usually starts at the pitch line;

and progresses below the pitch line towards dedendum.
It sometimes happens, especially with gears having a small
number of teeth (less than twenty), that pitting begins at mid-
dedendum or even lower.
Usually, the dedendum part of the tooth is the first to undergo
pitting, and only in considerably overloaded gears or in gears
which have suffered a significant dedendum wear, is pitting at
the addendum part of the tooth observed.
Assemblies
22
Evaluation of surface pitting risk
 An approximate evaluation of pitting risk is possible by
comparing the contact stress with a certain value characteristic
for the material of the gear.
If the working contact stress does not exceed that value then
there will not be pitting in the design life of the gear.
The factors which have real influence on this type of tooth failure
are the intensity of the load, the case depth and the tooth
geometry.
It is known that the final drives in slow moving vehicles are
exposed to a considerable danger of subsurface originated
pitting.
The gears used in the final drives are spur, helical, bevel or
hypoid and they are usually case-carburized and almost always
heavily loaded with contact stresses in the region of 1.8 GPa.
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23
Assessment of gear wear
 It is important for the designer to be familiar with the accepted

general procedures which are used to assess the risk of gear wear
and to be able to decide which of the expected wear rates may be
tolerated for a particular application.
 Engineering practice shows that power gear trains, transmitting
over 500kW, run at high speeds should ensure thick film
lubrication. Then there should be no wear, provided that allowable
surface contact stresses are not exceeded and the lubricant is
clean.
 Gears with teeth of low hardness might undergo wear on lower
parts of the tooth flanks. This wear is also mainly due to pitting.
Assemblies
24 Design Aspect of Gear Lubrication
 When gears run in a mixed lubrication regime the risk of pitting
is considerably increased after 107 or more contact cycles.
 This is the case with final drive gears in vehicles, or gears in
the last stage of multiple stage electric motor drives.
 The risk of wear can be significantly reduced by using oils with
a relatively high viscosity and containing surface active
additives.
 There are some highly loaded gear trains which are run at
speeds which may not allow formation of a thick lubricating
film.
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 A properly selected oil combined with good worn-in tooth
surfaces may move gear operation from a boundary to a mixed
lubrication regime.
 Scuffing is usually characterized by excessive damage of tooth
surfaces and virtually cannot be controlled. Therefore it is
extremely important to ensure, at the design stage, that the risk
of scuffing is as low as it practically possible.
 Another important factor in the smooth operation of gears is the
cleanliness of the lubricant.
 It is vitally important to ensure that the new gear units are
thoroughly cleaned before they are put into service.
 When the lubricant is free from any form of contamination the
gear train will operate without serious wear problems.
Assemblies
 When the power transmitted by the gear train is in the range 1-
100 kW and the pitch circle velocity is less than 10 m s-1, splash
lubrication can be quite effective provided that the lubricant is
replenished at regular intervals, usually after 6 to 8 months, or
when the level of the lubricant is below that recommended.
 It is important check cooling aspect in the case of gear units
transmitting power in the range of 100-500 kW at a pitch line
velocity not exceeding 15 ms-1.
 The usual procedure is to determine both a thermal rating and a
mechanical rating for the unit.
 The thermal rating tells us how much power can be transmitted
by the unit before its steady-state temperature is too high.
Assemblies
27 Design aspect of gear lubrication
 It is accepted in gear design, that with the increase in the pitch
line velocity, the lubricant used should be less viscous in order to
minimize the power losses.
 In the case of heavily loaded gears, however, it is recommended
that more viscous lubricants are used.
 The higher values of viscosity are selected for heavily loaded
gears.
 It is critical to determine the amount of oil required in the gearbox,
as too much oil would cause an increase in power losses due to
oil churning and, on the other hand, an insufficient amount of oil
would adversely affect heat dissipation.
Assemblies
28 Efficiency of gears
 The power loss in properly lubricated spur, helical or similar
types of gearing is usually very low, because the tooth friction is
of the order of only 1 per cent or less of the power transmitted at
full load.
 To this, the losses due to oil churning and bearing friction have
to be added.
 In such gears, there is sliding at all points in the path of contact,
except at the pitch point, and it can be deduced that the
coefficient of friction is low and that lubrication must therefore be
effective in spite of the extremely high contact pressures.
Assemblies
29 Efficiency of gears
 An expression for efficiency is given by:
where α is the inclination of the plane, or the pitch angle of the

worm, and Φ is the angle of friction.
The efficiency is generally of the order 0.97 -0.98, i.e. of the same
order as that for spur gears.

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Vehicle Tribology

1 Tribological Losses and Engine Design

 The transmission system consists of:

 Since the gears are designed to

In principle all the frictional resistances come from the shearing of

Q is average intensity of loading on the surface.

 The different regimes are defined in terms of load intensity (Q)

Typical failure modes of gears are surface fatigue, scoring, pitting,

where Ra = (R1 + R2)/2, R1 -root mean square (r.m.s.) finish

Initial pitting occurs during running-in period wherein oversized

 A pit being a small crater left in the surface as a result of a

Experiments suggest that pitting usually starts at the pitch line;

 It is important for the designer to be familiar with the accepted

where α is the inclination of the plane, or the pitch angle of the

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