Abstract
This paper deals with an experimental evaluation of bending fatigue strengths for hobbed, forged, sintered and austempered ductile iron (ADI) spur gears. The module is 2.5 and the number of teeth is 26 in the test gears. The materials of the test gears are SCr420H for hobbed and forged gears, prealloyed powder metal with 1.5 wt.% Mo for sintered gears, and FCAD 1100-15 for ADI gears. All gears except ADI gears were carburized. The pulsator bending fatigue tests were carried out for the test gears. Then the relationship between the strength and the manufacturing cost is obtained. The forged gear has the high strength of 3% and low cost compared with the hobbed gear. It is the best among the four gears. The sintered and ADI gears have approximately half the strength and cost of the hobbed gear. These gears are effective when cost is a high priority. In the progress of the fatigue tests, comparisons of strength among gears having different tooth-root forms were needed. The nominal stress obtained from actual measured profile data using a noncontact-type measuring machine is suitable for comparing the fatigue strength in gears having different root forms.
