Experimental Investigation of the Impact Resistance of Involute Spur Gears

Gears are the most commonly used power transmission element in today's world. Due to their advantages, gears are widely used in many sectors such as aerospace, space, wind turbines, automotive, etc. In these sectors the moment, speed and power values that need to be transmitted are increasing day by day. Due to the increased power and moment values, gears are exposed to high dynamic, impact loads and they are subject to damage due to these loads. For this reason, the impact resistance of the gears must be determined carefully in the design phase of the gear. In this study, an experimental method for determining impact loads of the gears is developed. A special drop gear impact test setup is designed and manufactured to determine the impact loads on the gear. The test setup works by dropping the load on the gear tooth from a certain height. In this way, the teeth are broken and the impact load, acceleration and displacement values are measured by using special measurement instruments which are attached on the test setup. The effect of surface hardness on impact loads is investigated. Two different gear samples are used in the experiments. It is seen that the surface hardness has great effect on the impact loads of the gears. It has been found that surface hardened gears have much higher impact strength than unhardened gears.