Index

 Problem Definition: Gears Introduction

 Common Modes Of Gear Failures
 Gear Design : Involute Spur Gear
 Identification of Desired Properties in Gear Material
 Candidate materials for gear
 Quantitative Analysis of physical properties of candidate materials
 Heat Treatment and Microstructure
 Cost considerations
 Conclusion
 Bibliography

Problem Definition
 Designing of a gear for light automobile vehicle (say motorcycle).
 The gear should be able to transfer power from the engine output to the differential
drives(eventually to the wheels).
 The engine’s maximum power would be around 11 bhp (at 4400 rpm) and maximum torque
20.2 Nm (at 2800 rpm) and reduction ratio of 3/4 ( first gear).
 The noise of gear and friction losses should be minimized and the gear should be durable as
well.

Gears: Introduction
Gears are machine elements that transmit rotary motion and power from one shaft to another by the
successive engagements of teeth on their periphery. They have been in use for more than three
thousand years now, and they are an important element in all manner of machinery used in current
times. Particularly, use of specific types of gears drastically affects the quality of transmission in
automobiles. If appropriate gears are used considering the power and torque of engine, efficiency of
automobiles can be increased, thereby, not only increasing the power of car but also, decreasing the
fuel consumption.

Selection of Proper Gear Model:-

There is a wide variety of types of gears in existence. Broadly, they can be classified by the
relationship of the shaft axes on which the gears are mounted. The shafts may be parallel, intersecting
or nonintersecting and nonparallel. Some of the important types of gears are listed below:

 Gears that operate on parallel shafts- Spur gears, Helical gears, Herringbone gears,
Internal gears
 Gears that operate on Intersecting shafts- Bevel gears, Face gears
 Gears that operate on nonparallel and nonintersecting shafts- Worm gear
sets, Crossed helical gears, Hypoid gears, Spiroid gears
 The first step in designing a set of gears is to select the correct type. In automobiles, the
gears are on parallel axes; hence, spur or helical gears are appropriate. External helical gears
are used when both high speeds and high horsepowers are involved. External helical gears
have been built to carry as much as 45,000 kW of power on a single pinion and gear.

While, spur gears are relatively simple in design and in the machinery used to
manufacture and check them. These can be used at almost any speed that can be handled by
other types of gears but, it produces noise.

So, to keep the design simple and as we are looking for light automobile gears, spur gears
is good choice. After selecting the gear type, the next important concerns are: - gear design
and gear material properties. But before we delve further into these topics, it is important to
analyze the common causes of gear failures.

Analysis of common gear failure modes:

The three most common types of gear tooth failures are tooth breakage, surface pitting, and
scoring.

a) Tooth breakage may be caused by an unexpectedly heavy load being imposed on the teeth. A
more common type failure is due to bending fatigue, which results from the large number of
repetitions of load imposed on the tooth as the gear rotates. A small value for the radius of the
fillet may accentuate the bending fatigue effects.
b) Pitting is a surface fatigue phenomenon caused by stresses exceeding the endurance limit of
the surface material. After a sufficient number of repetitions of the loading cycle, bits of metal
on the surface will fatigue and drop out. The process sometimes continues at an increasing
rate since the remaining unpitted areas are less able to carry the load. Lubrication difficulties
nay contribute to pitting failures.
c) Scoring can occur under heavy loads and inadequate lubrication. The oil film breaks down
and metal-to-metal contact occurs. High temperatures result and the high spots of the two
surfaces of the teeth undergo rapid wear. Gearboxes should be broken in preliminary
operation at lower loads and smaller speeds until the tooth surfaces are highly polished.
Misalignment of the shafts may shift the entire load to one edge of the tooth, with resulting
excessive stress and the diametric pitch should be at least 10 or greater. For coarse pitches,
scoring is sometimes a greater hazard than breakage or pitting.
d) Abrasive wear is caused by the presence of the foreign particles in gears that are not enclosed,
or in enclosed gears that were assembled with abrasive particles present, or in gears lubricated
by an oil supply with inadequate infiltration.

Design of Gears to Prevent Failures

1) Scoring can often be prevented by directing adequate flow of appropriate lubricant. Surface
finish is also an important factor for scoring. Surface finish as fine as 0.5 um cla is desirable
to avoid scoring
2) Pitting can be reduced by reducing contact stresses by reducing loads or by optimizing gear
geometry; using clean steel, properly heat treated to hardness preferably by carburizing; using
smooth tooth surfaces produced by grinding and honing; using an adequate amount cool,
clean and dry lubricant of adequate viscosity.
3) Abrasive wear can be prevented by observing the following guidelines:
 a. Built-in contaminations should be removed from the gearboxes by draining and
flushing the lubricant
b. Minimize internally generated wear debris by using surface hardened gear teeth,
smooth tooth surfaces, and high-viscosity lubricants.

GEAR NOISE
The gear noise arises due to several reasons. At the contact point due to error in the gear profile,
surface roughness, impact of tooth and sliding and rolling friction; bearings, churning of the
lubricant, and windage.
The principal methods of combating noise are: improving the tooth finishing operations, changing
over to helical gearing, modifying the profile by flanking, increasing the contact ratio, equalizing
the load along the face width of the tooth rim, using crowned gears, and improving the design of
the covers and housings.

Design and Material selection for Spur Gear

Now having analyzed common modes of failure in gear, the next step is selection of design
and material for spur gear, which possess resistant qualities to the failure modes. We start with the
design part.

Spur Gear Design

i Portion of Involute Spur Gear

The function of a gear is to work smoothly while transmitting motion or torque. For this the
angular velocity ratio at all times should remain constant. Hence, the gear profile is designed to
ensure Constant Meshing. This kind of gear profile is also known as Involute gear profile.

Involute Gear Profile: - Involute is the path generated by the end of a thread as it unwinds from a
reel. Involute profiles have special properties. Imagine two involute teeth in contact as shown in
Figure i. If a normal is drawn at the contact point to the involute profile, it will be tangent to the
generating circles.
Advantages of Involute gear tooth profile: -

1. Variation in centre distance does not affect the velocity ratio.

2. Pressure angle remains constant throughout the engagement, which results in smooth running.
3. Straight teeth of basic rack for involute admit simple tools. Hence, manufacturing becomes
cheap and simple.

Identification of Properties desired in the material for gear

The steels selected for gear applications must satisfy two basic sets of requirements that are
not always compatible – those involving fabrication and processing and those involving service.

Fabrication and processing requirements include machinability, forgeability, and response to

heat treatment as it affects fabrication and processing.

Service requirements are related to the ability of the gear to perform satisfactorily under the
conditions of loading for which it was designed and thus encompass all mechanical-property
requirements, including fatigue strength, response to heat treatment, and resistance to wear.

There are some very critical matters that need to be given a consideration before selecting a gear
material. They are the following:

 Allowable bending and hertz stress

 Wear resistance
 Impact strength
 Water and corrosion resistance
 Manufacturing cost
 Size
 Weight
 Reliability
 Lubrication requirements
 No Moisture Absorption
 Dimensionally Stable
 Stress-Free structure
 Environmental and surface temperature

Material Quality
As it is well known that material quality has a strong influence on factors like pitting resistance and
bending strength. So for getting a high quality material, the following metallurgical variables should
be properly controlled.

 Chemical composition
 Hardenability
 Material Toughness
 Hardness of Surface and core
 Micro structure of surface and core
 Cleanliness and inclusions
 Surface defects like flanks and root fillets
 Structure and size of grain
 Residual stress pattern
 Internal defects
  Decarburization

Materials Available for gears

Alloys for gears

Ferrous Alloys Non-Ferrous Alloys

Wrought Gear
Cast Steels Bronzes
Steels

Surface Hardening Thorough Cast Carbon and other non ferrous

Steels Hardening Steels alloy steels alloys for low load

Gray and ductile

Carburizing
cast irons

P/M irons and

Nitriding
steels

Carbonitriding Stainless Steels

Tool Steels

Maraging Steels
 Wrought Gear Steels
 Surface Hardening Steels:
 Carburized Steels: General Properties
 Harder than normal steels
 More resistant to abrasive wear
 Improved fatigue properties compared with unaffected core

Some representative SAE-AISI carburizing steels used for gears include: Plain
Carbon Steels ( 1015, 1018, 1020, 1022, 1025), Free Machining Steels(1117 and
1118), Alloy steels(4020, 4026, 4118, 4320, 4620, 4820, 5120, 8620, 8720 and
9310).

The nickel-bearing carburizing steels are used chiefly where exceptional core
toughness combined with the highest degree of wear resistance and greatest
surface compressive strength is required.

 Nitriding Steels: General Properties

 Can be used where a hard, wear-resistant case, good fatigue strength, low
notch sensitivity, and some degree of corrosion resistance are desired.
 Relatively free from wear up to the load at which surface failure occurs, but
at this load they become badly crushed and pitted.
 Not suitable for applications where overloads are likely to be encountered.

Any of the SAE-AISI steels that contain nitride-forming elements, such as

chromium, vanadium, or molybdenum, can be nitride. The steels most commonly
nitride are 4140, 4340, 6140 and 8740. Both Nitralloy N and Nitralloy 135 M are
outstanding for heavy-duty gears that are highly stressed.

 Thorough-Hardening Steels :
 Possess greater core strength than carburized gears due to higher carbon content
 They are not as ductile or as resistant to surface compressive stresses and wear as
case-hardened gears.
 Hardness of gear surfaces may vary from 300 to 575 HB
 Greater hardenability provides greater strength.
 Suitable for gears requiring medium-to-high wear resistance and high load-
carrying capacity.

Typical of the low-alloy, medium-to-deep hardening gear materials are (in order of
increasing hardenability): 4042, 5140, 8640, 3140, 4140, 8740, 6145, 9840 and 4340.
When selecting a thorough-hardening stel, it should be considered that a higher
carbon and alloy content is accompanied by greater strength and hardness (but lower
ductility) of the surface and the core. Fully hardened and tempered medium-carbon
alloy steels possess an excellent combination of strength and toughness at room
temperature and lower temperatures. Because of their good hardenability and
immunity to temper brittleness, molybdenum steels have been widely used for gears
requiring good toughness at room and low temperatures.
  Cast steels
 Gray Cast Iron : General Properties
 Low in cost
 Can be easily cast into desired shape for the rim, web, and hub of a gear.
 Easily machinable
 Good resistance to wear and are often less sensitive to lubrication
inadequacies
 Good dampening qualities
 Low impact strength and should not be used where severe shock loads occur
 Ductile cast Iron : General properties
 Hardness can range from less than 160 HB to more than 300 HB
 Austempered ductile irons have very high strength, some ductility and
toughness, and often an ability to work harden, which gives appreciably
higher wear resistance.
 Used in automobiles, trucks, and railroad and military vehicles
 P/M iron and steels : General properties
 Sintered steels and powder forged nickel steels
 Have excellent tensile strength qualities

Other types of steels do not have properties required for automobile gears, hence we move
on to non-ferrous alloys available for gears.

 Non-Ferrous Alloys
 Tin Bronzes : General Properties
 These alloys are tough and have good corrosion resistance
 They possess excellent wear resistance

Most commonly used alloy in this group is C90700, or gear bronze, which contains
89% Cu and 11% Sn.

 Manganese Bronzes : General Properties

 High strength and hardness, toughest material in bronze family
 Do not possess the same degree of corrosion resistance, wearability, or
bearing quality as the tin bronzes or aluminum bronzes.
 Aluminum Bronzes : General Properties
 Lighter in weight
 Can attain higher mechanical properties through heat treatment
 As the strength is increased, their ductility decreases
 Bearing characteristics are better than manganese bronzes but inferior to tin
bronzes.
Quantitative Study of Candidate Materials
Material Tensile Yield Strength Elongation in 50 Hardness (in
Strength(in (in MPa) mm, % HB)
MPa)
Carbon steel bar
1015 385 325 18 111
1020 420 350 15 121
1025 440 370 18 149
1045 625 530 12 179
1117 475 400 15 137
1118 495 420 15 143
Low-alloy steels
4130 1040 979 18.1 302
4150 1310 1215 13.5 375
4340 1207 1145 14.2 352
5140 972 841 18.5 293
8620 635 360 26.3 183
8740 1225 1130 16 269
9310 2169 2135 7.7 55.1 HRC
Bronzes
C86100 655 345 20 180
C87500 462 207 21 134
C95200 552 186 35 125
C95500 689 303 12 192

Hardenability characteristics of commonly used gear steels

Common Alloy steel grades Hardenability
Noncarburizing grades
1045 Low hardenability
4130 Marginal hardenability
4140 Fair hardenability
4145 Medium hardenability
8640 Medium hardenability
4340 Good hardenability in heavy sections
4150 Quench crack sensitive
Good hardenability
4142 Used when 4140 exhibits marginal hardenability
4350 Quench crack sensitive, excellent hardenability in heavy sections
Carburizing grades
1020 Very low hardenability
4118 Fair core hardenability
4620 Good case hardenability
8620 Fair core hardenability
4320 Good core hardenability
8822 Good core hardenability in heavy sections
3310 Excellent hardenability (in heavy sections)
4820 Excellent hardenability (in heavy sections)
9310 Excellent hardenability (in heavy sections)
Machinability of commonly used gear materials
Material Remarks
Low-carbon
carburizing steel
grades
1020 Good machinability, as rolled, as forged, or normalized
4118 Good machinability, as rolled, or as forged. However, normalized is
4620 preferred. Inadequate cooling during normalizing can result in gummy
8620 material, reduced tool life and poor surface finish. Quench and temper as a
8822 prior treatment can aid machinability. The economics of the pretreatments
must be considered
3310 Fair to good machinability if normalized and tempered, annealed or
4320 quenched and tempered. Normalizing without tempering results in reduced
4820 machinability
9310
Medium-carbon
thorough-hardening
steel grades
1045 Good machinability if normalized.
1141
1541
4130 Good machinability if annealed, or normalized and tempered to
4140 approximately 255 HB or quenched and tempered to approximately 321
4142 HB. Over 321 HB, machinability is fair. Above 363 HB, machinability is
poor. Inadequate (slack) quench with subsequent low tempering
temperature may produce a part which meets the specified hardness, but
produces a mixed microstructure which results in poor machinability.
4145 Remarks for medium carbon alloy steel (above) apply. However, the higher
4150 carbon results in lower machinability of these grades. 4340 machinability is
4340 good up to 363 HB. The higher carbon level in 4145, 4150, 4345 and 4350
4345 makes them more difficult to machine and should be specified only for
4350 heavy sections. Inadequate (slack) quench can seriously affect
machinability in these steels.
Other gear materials
Gray Irons Gray cast irons have good machinability. Higher strength gray cast irons
[above 345 MPa tensile strength] have reduced machinability.
Ductile Irons Annealed or normalized ductile cast iron has good machinability. The “as
cast” (not heat treated) ductile iron has good machinability up to 285 HB
and fair machinability. Quenched and tempered ductile iron has good
machinability up to 285 HB and fair machinability up to 352 HB. Above
352 HB, machinability is poor.
Gear bronzes and All gear bronzes and brass have good machinability. The very high
brasses strength heat treated bronzes [above 760 MPa tensile strength] have fair
machinability.
Austenitic Stainless All austenitic steel grades only have fair machinability. Because of work
Steel hardening tendencies, feeds and speeds must be selected to minimize work
hardening.

 Coarse grain steels are more machinable than fine grain. However gear steels are generally used
in the fine grain condition since mechanical properties are improved, and distortion during heat
treatment is reduced. Increasingly cleaner steels are now also being specified for gearing.
However, if sulfur content is low, less than 0.015% machinability may decrease appreciably.
Heat Treatment
Through-hardening is generally used for gears that do not require high surface hardening. Gear tooth
hardness ranges from 30 to 248 HRC. Gears have medium carbon content 0.3-0.6%. The higher the
hardenability the deeper through hardening of gear tooth.

Carburizing is a process in which austenitized ferrous metal is brought into contact with an
environment of sufficient carbon to cause its absorption at the surface, creating a concentration
gradient between the surface and interior. As a rough approximation, carburized depth of approx.
0.03-0.05 inch on a six diametral pitch can be obtained in about four hour at 930 0C. The primary
objective is to secure a hard case and a relatively tough core. For this purpose, low carbon steels
(around 0.3% carbon) are normally used.

Nitriding is a surface hardening heat treatment that introduces nitrogen into the surface of steel at a
temperature generally in the range of 500- 575 0C while it is in the ferritic condition. Steels that are
nitrided are generally medium carbon steels that contains strong nitride forming elements such as
aluminium, chromium, molybdenum, tungsten and vanadium. Prior to nitriding, the steels are
austenitized, quenched and tempered. Tempering is performed at temperature 540-750 0C, a range
above which nitriding is performed. Tempering above nitriding temperature provides a core structure
that is stable during nitriding.

Quenching and Hardening

After carburizing, gears are quenched in a cooling medium for hardening. Quenching develops a
martensitic or a bainitic case with core microstructures other than a mixture of proeutectoid ferrite and
pearlite. The quenching should not be fast enough that the case cracks. Most often oil is used for
quenching purpose as it is suitable for most carburizing grades of steel. For load distortion, high alloy
steels are first cooled in air after carburizing and then reheated and quenched. Direct quenching has
gained wider acceptance primarily because of economy and simplicity of the procedure. A single
direct quench operation minimizes distortion by bringing about crystallographic phase changes during
only one heating and one cooling cycle. In case the temperature of gear is reduced prior to quenching
to minimize thermal shock, carbon content near the surface must be held to below saturation
otherwise carbides will precipitate. Reheating before quench is one way to avoid the development of a
carbide network. In the case of severe quench required to obtain high core hardness, sometimes may
lead to cracking. Cracking results due to difference in the rate of cooling of thick and thin sections.

Tempering of quenched and carburized gears

Surface hardness of quenched gears decreases as the tempering temperature increases. Higher
tempering temperature reduces both case hardness and case depth. Gears required to maintain high
compressive and bending strength, steels that are least affected by tempering temperature are
preferred. Tempering provides some benefits to resist cracking or chipping of gear under as loading.

Cold treatment
The presence of retained austenite in a heat treated case can be source of dimensional instability,
excessive residual stress or cracking. One way of reducing the amount of retained austenite is to cold
treat a gear following quenching, in which retained austenite in the case would transform to
martensite. Temperatures in the range -75 to -100 0C are routinely used in cold treating.

In general, we attain a tooth surface hardness around 60 HRC and a core hardness between 32
and 40 HRC after heat treatment.
Effect of common alloying element
Alloying elements commonly used in gear materials: -

1) Nickel: - the principle advantage lies in higher tensile strength. Nickel also lowers the critical
temperature and hence lower heat treat temperature can be used. Nickel increases
hardenability and fatigue strength of steels.
2) Chromium: - it is essentially a hardening element and frequently used frequently used with
nickel to improve strength and wear resistance and hardenabililty. Chromium has however,
the disadvantage of being temper-brittle.
3) Molybdenum: - it is relatively added in small amount(0.13 – 0.3 %). Effects: -
a. Greater ductility and toughness
b. Reduced temper embrittleness
c. Improved creep resistance at high temperatures
d. Greater hardenabililty when present with chromium
4) Vanadium: - When present with Ni, Cr, and Mo, it improves fatigue resistance, provides fine
grain structure, reduces grain growth tendency.
5) Tungsten: - it forms a hard, stable carbide that imparts wear and abrasive resistance. In the
dissolved form, it increases hardenability. It decreases the tendency to form cracks in the
case-core boundary.
6) Cobalt : - cobalt improves high temperature strength characteristics and corrosion resistance.
In addition, it imparts excellent wear resistance. But, the hardenability of steel is reduced with
cobalt over 0.4%.

Cost consideration
 To minimize the cost of designing and machinability, Spur gear design is preferred because
of its simple design.
 Manufacturing cost also includes machinability and heat treatment of the material.
 As for the cost of material, cast iron is cheapest and aluminium bronze alloys are the
costliest.

Cast Iron and Ductile Iron, < Low Alloy steels, <<< Bronze alloys

 Cost of Low alloy steels depend primarily on the composition of the steel.
 Thus, despite bronze alloys possessing better machinability and other characteristics, it
is not preferred due to high costs.
 Low Alloy steels, with better properties than Cast iron are the most preferred choice.

Gear Material Selection

1. Gears are commonly made of cast iron, steel, bronze.
2. Cast iron is the least expensive. ASTM / AGMA grade 20 is widely used. Grades 30, 40, 50,
60 are progressively stronger and more expensive.
3. Cast Iron gears have greater surface fatigue strength than bending fatigue strength. Better
damping properties enable them to run quietly than steel.
4. Nodular cast iron gears have higher bending strength together with good surface durability.
These gears are nowadays used in automobile cam shafts. A good combination is often a steel
pinion mated against cast iron gear. Steel finds many applications since it combines both high
strength and low cost. Plain carbon and alloy steel usage is quite common.
 5. Through hardened plain carbon steel with 0.35 - 0.6% C are used when gears need hardness
more than 250 to 350 Bhn. These gears need grinding to overcome heat treatment distortion.
6. When compactness, high impact strength and durability are needed as in automotive and
mobile applications, alloy steels are used. These gears are surface or case-hardened by flame
hardening, induction hardening, nitriding or case carburizing processes.
7. Steels such as En 353, En36, En24, 17CrNiMo6 widely used for gears
8. Bronzes are used when corrosion resistance, low friction and wear under high sliding
velocity is needed as in worm-gear applications. AGMA recommends Tin bronzes
containing small % of Ni, Pb or Zn. The hardness may range from 70 to 85Bhn.
Microstructure

Conclusion
 After analyzing tensile strength, hardness, hardenability, wear resistance, corrosion resistance
etc, carburized low alloy steel 8620 matches most of the required properties for the spur
gear. Although it is costlier than Cast Iron, it has better durability, and in the long run, it will
prove to be more economical than cast iron and other cheaper iron alloys. Bronze alloys have
better strength and corrosion resistance, yet its low ductility and high cost makes it a less
preferable choice than 8620.

Bibliography
 Gear Materials, Properties, And Manufacture, by American Society of Materials(ASM)
International
 Design of Machine Elements, 7th Edition, M. F. Spotts and T. E. Shoup, Pearson Education
 NPTEL course Machine Design II on website http://nptel.iitm.ac.in/courses/IIT-
MADRAS/Machine_Design_II/index.php , by Prof. K. Gopinath and Prof. M. M. Mayuram
(IIT Madras)
 www.sciencedirect.com

Thank You!

Saurav Aryan

Roll No. 09010057

Second Year Undergraduate

Mechanical Department

Shashwat Gopal

Roll No. 09010064

Second Year Undergraduate

Mechanical Department