EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

ME 376 MACHINE ELEMENTS II

GEARBOX DESIGN PROJECT ASSIGNMENT

DUE DATE: TO BE SUBMITTED DURING OR BEFORE THE FINAL EXAM.

OBJECTIVES:
The ME 376 Design Project is intended to achieve the following aims and objectives:
1. To apply the knowledge acquired and principles learned in the course to a specific, real and
practical design problem.
2. To help students gain an understanding of design approaches and to apply the principles of
strength of materials, material selection, and manufacturing processes.
3. To help students see and understand the interrelationship among individual machine elements,
which are put together to fulfill a certain specified function.
4. To complete a design task, by starting with concepts and making the necessary decision
analysis at every stage of the design, which include the detection of the critical elements and
sections of these parts and the application of the principles of functionality, cost and safety.
5. To gain an experience of working in teams.
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
You are the designer and you have been asked to design a speed reducer that will take power from the
shaft of an electric motor rotating at 1200 rpm and deliver it to a machine that is to operate at
approximately at 155 rpm. Assume that you have decided to use helical gears to transmit the power
[A power equal to the last two digits of your student number in kilowatts, e.g. H = 67 kW for a
student # 092767.] and you are proposing to use a double-reduction speed reducer like the one shown
in the sample figure attached.
The input shaft (shaft-a) is coupled to the motor shaft. The first gear of the gear train is mounted on
this shaft and rotates at the same speed as the motor (n in = na = 1200 rpm.) Gear-2 drives the mating
gear (gear-3) which is larger, causing the speed of rotation of shaft-bc to be slower than shaft-a. It is
noted that the speed is not yet down to 155 rpm as desired. [That helps explain the need for a doublereduction train set. This is because a compact gearbox is needed!]
The next step is to mount a third gear (gear-4) on shaft-bc and mate it with gear-5 mounted on the
output shaft (shaft-d), which is inline with the input shaft-a. With proper sizing of all four gears, you
should be able to obtain an output speed equal or quite close to the desired speed [n out = ~155 rpm.]
Each of the shafts are supported by two ball or roller bearings that need to be specified by you [there
are six bearings to be selected by the designer!] An overall reliability of 95 %, and a design life of
20.000 h are desired.
The hand of gears #3 and #4 on shaft-bc to be adjusted such that the thrust loads on shaft-bc oppose
each other and thus the resultant axial load on the shaft is to be kept at a minimum level!
The following list gives some of the important parameters for each gear:
The number of teeth, N (such as: N2, N3, N4, and N5.)
The form of the teeth (involute tooth profile).
The size of the teeth as indicated by the module, m [mm.] (Note that the module m23 of
gear pair-23 may be different from the module m45 of gear pair-45.)
The face width of the teeth, F [mm.] (F23 is not necessarily equal to F45!)
The pitch diameter (dp)for each of the gears, [mm.]
The means of attaching the gear to its shaft (such as: keys and keyways)

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

ME 376 MACHINE ELEMENTS II

The means of locating the gear axially on the shaft (collars, retaining rings etc.)
The degree of precision of the gear teeth (You will need to decide on Q V based on the
pitch line velocity V of the pair (Noting that V23 V45)).
Other geometry related to helical gears (e.g. normal and transverse pressure angles ( n,
t) and the helix angle .)

SOME MAJOR TASKS EXPECTED FROM YOU AS A DESIGNER:

1. Determining the number of teeth for each gear: Knowledge of kinematic analysis of geared
mechanisms is required. You will refer to your Class-Notes and Chapter 13 of your text, and
understand the concept of velocity ratio and learn the techniques of designing doublereduction gear trains.
2. Analyzing the forces on gears and shafts: Force analyses are to be made based on the power
transmitted by the gear system. You will need to determine the loads acting on the teeth of
each gear pair, i.e. the transmitted load W t, the axial (thrust) load Wa and the radial load Wr
need to be determined for each gear pair. For example, for gear pair 23, (Wt)23, (Wr)23, and
(Wa)23; and for the pair formed by gears 4 and 5, (Wt)45, (Wr)45, and (Wa)45 must be calculated
and shown on their respective shafts. (You may start with taking n = 200, and = 150.)
3. Determining the stress acting on the gear teeth and selection of material to withstand these
stresses safely are other important tasks. You may take a factor of safety of 2 for this purpose.
These will require the determination of face width F and the module m for each pair. This may
require a trial-and-error approach. (recall that pitch diameter of a gear is: d = m N)
4. You must also be able to draw the shear and bending moment diagrams, as well as drawing
the free-body diagrams and calculating the reactions at the supports (Statics). A good
understanding of the subject matter covered in Chapters 7 and 13, as well as within your classnotes. Since the shafts must be able to accommodate all the elements within the range of the
supports, you must assign proper length dimensions for each of the shafts, considering the
arrangement of the elements and allowing space for the width of each bearing. (This is
important and should be checked later, as the width of the items will finally be decided.)
5. Based on the given data and the reactions found, you will select bearings for each of the
supports. You will need to choose an appropriate load application factor, AF, from Table 11-5.
In this selection, the design life, the design speed, and reliability requirements should all be
considered. Note that the speeds of the shafts are not the same.
6. From the bending moment diagrams obtained in task # 4, and after calculating the torque
transmitted by each one of the shafts, you will select materials for the shafts and design the
shafts. A factor of safety of 2.0 seems to be appropriate. [See Equation 7-11 and 7-12, on
pp.357 of Shigley.] Note that the diameter of the shaft will not be constant. There will be
some keyways and/or shoulders on each of the shaft creating stress concentration, which need
to be considered. Trial and error approaches, therefore, may need to be followed.
7. You are to size the keys and keyways for the application, which also requires selection of
materials for the intended application. [Refer to Section 7 of Chapter 7 in your textbook.]
8. A scaled drawing of the entire system will have to show all elements of the gearbox including
its housing. [See the sample figure supplied.]
9. Make a tabular summary of your results.
10. Give the name and student #s of your team members together with your own.

EASTERN MEDITERRANEAN UNIVERSITY

FACULTY OF ENGINEERING
DEPARTMENT OF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

ME 376 MACHINE ELEMENTS II

11. A good presentation will earn extra bonus points! Note that stepwise solutions and
explanatory remarks will help improve your style.

Sample Drawing:

Note: Each student must file his/her own project report.

Do provide the dimensional units whenever appropriate.

Be careful with the margins!
For your report A4-Plain papers are recommended.
Your findings must be justifiable and should be based on sound
engineering judgment.