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EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION TO
ASSESS SURFACE WEAR ON GEAR
TOOTH SURFACE

International Conference on Manufacturing Technology and Simulation

1/8/2020
IIT Madras, Chennai
 Contents
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 Introduction
 Experimental setup
 Measurement and estimation
 Results and discussion
 Conclusion
 Scope for future work
 References

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 Introduction
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 Surface is the primary element when two bodies come in contact, if it is to transfer
high speeds and high loads the surfaces must be tolerant to wear, scratch, scoring in
order to have better life.
 It is very important for contacting mechanical bodies to have better rigidity,
hardness, and smoothness to combat all the damage and failure mechanism.
 The development of micro-pitting damage over surface modifies the geometry of
the gear tooth profile.
 This leads to premature failure. This paper presents the results of experimental
investigations carried out to assess surface fatigue failure in spur gears mounted in
single stage gear box operated under constant load and speed.

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 Objectives
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1. Measure the tooth thickness of Gear box type: Single stage, constant load and constant
steel pinion which are run for speed spur gear box
1200 hours with constant load and Operating conditions:
Speed: 400 rpm
constant speed to understand the Loads: 0 - 15 Nm
wear rate. Lubricant: SAE 40-20w
2. Measure the surface roughness of
tooth surface of steel pinion for
1200 hours test duration.
3. Estimate the coefficient of friction
between gear teeth contact under Experimental measurements / Estimation
lubricated condition with Ra as a observations
Coefficient of
measured variable. Gear tooth thickness
friction between
Roughness
4. Analyze the variation of tooth gear teeth
Surface contact fatigue observation
thickness, surface roughness and
coefficient of friction over test run
time by using suitable graph.
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 Experimental setup
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Parameter Pinion Wheel

Number of teeth 32 55
Module 2.5 2.5
Circular pitch, mm 7.854 7.854
Teeth height, mm 6 6
Addendum, mm 2.5 2.5
Pressure angle, deg. 20 20
Fabricated test rig. Pitch circle dia, mm 80 137.5
Addendum circle dia, mm 84.55 142.5
Center distance, mm 108.75

Experimental setup details

Motor power,(kW) 2.25
Rotation of pinion, rpm 400
Torque load at o/p shaft (N-m) 0-15
Test run hours 1200
Gear material 1/8/2020 EN19T steel
Gear box
 Measurement and estimation of experimental
parameters
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 Friction co-efficient, tooth thickness,

roughness are the parameters
Gear tooth thickness
considered to assess surface fatigue
measurement.
failure in untreated spur gears.
 Results obtained from the
experimental investigations highlight
the suitability of above mentioned
parameters in effective assessment of
wear propagation due to surface
fatigue wear in a spur geared system.
Free to
translate
Measuring verticall
direction y

Gear tooth surface roughness measurement.

 Result and discussion
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Steel gear 1.0 Steel gear

3.9
tooth thickness (mm)

0.8

Ra (micron)
3.6 0.6

0.4

3.3
0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200
Run hours Run Hours

Histogram of tooth thickness variation over Histogram of roughness variation

running time. over run time.

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 Result and discussion
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0.64 Steel Pinion

0.2
𝐹∕𝑏 −0.05
0.56 𝜇𝑚 = 0.048 𝜂𝑜𝑖𝑙 𝑅𝑎0.25
𝑣Ʃ𝑐 𝜌𝑐
coefficient of friction (u)

0.48

0.40

0.32

0.24 New pinion

0.16

0.08

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200

Run time (hours)

Graph showing variation of COF with run hours.

Pinion ran for 1200 hours

 Conclusion
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Experimental investigations were carried out to assess surface fatigue wear on

spur gear tooth contact surfaces, the following conclusions were drawn from
the experimental observations.
1. Roughness value increases with increase in running cycles.
2. Coefficient of friction is considered as a function of roughness, these values
increase with increase in number of fatigue cycles.
3. Sliding-rolling contact fatigue occurs away from the pitch-line, predominantly
in the dedendum region of gear teeth, where negative sliding conditions
prevail. This form of damage leads to the formation of surface pits which may
act as initiation sites for other modes of failure.

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 Scope for future work
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 The experiment conducted is for untreated, ungrounded gears to understand its wear
behavior.
 In the future one can improve the surface properties by treating or coating or both
to reduce the wear and achieve the improved life time of gears.

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 References
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1. P.J.L.Fernandes and C.McDuling, Surface contact fatigue failures in gears.

Engineering Failure Analysis, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1997, pp. 99 107
2. Shigley, J. E., Mechanical Engineering Design, 1st metric edn. McGraw-Hill,
Singapore, 1986, pp. 78 80
3. Alban, L. E., Systematic Analysis of Gear Failures. American Society for Metals,
Metals Park, OH, 1985, pp. 94-106.
4. Wulpi, D. J., Understanding How Components Fail. American Society for Metals,
Metals Park, OH, 1985, pp. 183 204
5. M. Amarnath, Sang-Kwon Lee, Assessment of surface contact fatigue failure in a
spur geared system based on the tribological and vibration parameter analysis,
measurement 76 (2015) 32–44

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12 Thank you
Any questions..?

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