Analytical Mechanics Of Gears by Earl Buckingham For Sale On EBay 2

[gearcutter]

I found this valuable bible for sale on EBay and, as I already have a copy, thought I'd let others know about it.
It's a first edition and looks to be in reasonable condition.
If you are in the gearing industry this is one of the most important books you can have.

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/1949-Analyti...h=item120411397473&_trksid=p4634.c0.m14.l1262

Ron Volmershausen
Brunkerville Engineering
Newcastle Australia

http://www.aussieweb.com.au/email.aspx?id=1194181

 

[tbuelna]

gearcutter,

Having some of those older references (like Buckingham, Dudley or Khiralla) is sadly becoming more of a status symbol than a necessity for gear designers. I say this because the gear design softwares are now reasonably priced, accessible, and very sophisticated. In my opinion, the best way to learn how to design and optimize gear meshes is to play around with the gear software, trying different mod's and seeing how the gear performance is affected. Doing this allows even a novice designer to quickly understand how things like pressure angles, addendum mods, face and involute profile mods, surface finish, approach or recess action, etc. affect mesh performance. You make a change and can get near instant feedback of the result. Sitting down with an experienced gear designer and working with a good software (like Kissoft or UTS) is an excellent learning experience.

Regards,
Terry

PS. I was going to buy that Buckingham book to add to my collection, but sadly it had already been sold (for $7.50US!).

 

[israelkk]

I bought it!

If you have patience to follow ebay you will find great deals too including this book.

I have a vast engineering library which I mainly acquired through ebay. I favor 1940-1970 books where most mechanical, hydraulics, pneumatics, electro-mechanical, etc. engineering investments and advancements were made. Those book were meant for analytic solutions by hand of by a digital computer. They give great understanding and insight.

To your opinion that the current really great software tools (and I too use such custom made or off the shelf software tools) diminish the need for such books I have to disagree.

When you are sitting in engineering meeting, CDR, PDR, or brain storming where engineering decisions are made and can have intelligent questions, answers, suggestions and solutions on hand you are on top of things. If you do not have a strong analytical background and knowledge and have to sit still and wait until you are back in the office to play with the gear design program or with the Finite Element Analysis monster, you get too narrow grasp of the issues and in addition this is many times too late.

I had the privilege to work with engineers that in less than hour could calculate and give you with a 90% accurate estimation: the weight and size of a custom designed high pressure pneumatic aerospace servo actuator, including the custom designed components such as the high pressure on-off solenoid valve/s, pressure regulator, the best gas, time constants, and the custom designed pressure vessel for the mission.

This can never be done without deep knowledge that comes from books research and experience.

 

[tbuelna]

israelkk,

I would agree with your point about software usage. A good engineer or analyst should have a sound knowledge of the theory and calculations behind the software code. Otherwise it's just garbage-in-garbage-out.

But tweaking gear designs to optimize performance is more art than science. And that's what separates the men from the boys when it comes to good gear design. In the past, the only real way to gain an understanding of how various geometry mods affected meshing was to make a gear set and test it. It was mostly empirical knowledge gained by years of experience, or handed down from one engineer to another. But with the high-fidelity simulation now possible with good gear softwares, that association between cause/effect can be learned in a matter of weeks, not years. And at a much lower cost!

Regards,
Terry

PS. I'll give you $8.50 for that book

 

[gearcutter]

Here is another one for sale on EBay.
This one is soft cover 1988 version.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Analytical-Mech...goryZ378QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Ron Volmershausen
Brunkerville Engineering
Newcastle Australia

http://www.aussieweb.com.au/email.aspx?id=1194181

 

[gearguru]

I recommend the "Best Books Buy" web page for the book search.
Looking for Earle Buckingham's soft cover book returned this results:

http://www.bestwebbuys.com/Analytical_Mechanics_of_Gears-ISBN_9780486657127.html?isrc=b-search

I have the same opinion as Israelkk. Using software is OK, but the user has to know what and how the software does and what all those terms mean.
I am the slide rule era person, I still believe that an engineer should know how to solve a problem even if the power supply in his/her PC or calculator die.

 

[TVP]

I like the intellectual discussion that this thread has sprouted. I am in a category somewhere between "young engineer" and "slide rule era engineer", and I absolutely agree with the comments that have been made so far by Terry, israelkk, and gg. If I may expand a little on Terry's comments, I think the one of the key aspects that comes from working with software is that of visualization. I agree that a deep understanding of fundamentals is one of the necessary traits for expert-level engineering, and one of the best ways to acquire this is by reading and comprehending the information in high quality reference works, especially those from the era that israelkk identied. However, another necessary aspect is that of visualization, and this is a trait I have found difficult to obtain from a traditional engineering/university education. Experience, such as trial-by-error or make-it/test-it/break-it, certainly helps address this, but this is where Terry's argument of using software and iterating designs makes a lot of sense-- the user can visualize, in almost real-time, how a design works, how changes affect the performance of the design, etc. I know that I have benefitted significantly by using software tools that aid my visualization of how a design responds to forces by deflecting, how stresses can vary by location due to multiple body interactions, etc.

 

[Compositepro]

I, also, found the statement about playing with software "provocative", but wasn't going to say anything. Everyone has their own way of thinking and there is no right way. But, computers only crunch numbers using equations. By "playing with software" you are merely trying to visualize the equations that the software uses. Perhaps the missing link is that visualization of mathematical equations was not learned. This is where most mathematics education fails. But, I've seen that some people truly lack this ability and if software helps, then great.

Another possibility is that few kids today get the opportunity to to learn "hands-on" by taking things apart and blowing them-up (gosh that was fun). So the computer is the only way to provide "real world experience". The biggest problem I see with that is that computers and movies often provide "unreal world experiences" and today's kids can't see the difference. They have a lot to unlearn to become an engineer, like a man cannot out-run an explosion.

 

[tbuelna]

TVP,

Thanks for the comment. I'm like you. I started out in engineering about 25 years ago, just before CAD and CAE became widespread. I started out using a drawing board and hand calc's to do my design work. But I have long since transitioned to 3D CAD and FEA to do most of my day-to-day work. Occasionally, I still do some hand calc's, but just as a sanity check on my FEA results.

I'm old enough that I learned how to design gears and bearings by "hand". But becoming proficient and (somewhat) competent at gear and bearing design was only possible because I was able to work side-by-side with older engineers that had lots of hands-on experience.

The situation that helped me appreciate how valuable current design softwares (like KISSoft for gears or COBRA for bearings) are for teaching, occurred when I was tasked with bringing some engineering new-hires at the company I work at, up to speed on gear and bearing design basics. I gave them copies of Dudley, Khiralla and Harris, and told them to read them, which they diligently did. Then I sat down with them and played around with our gear and bearing design softwares, going through dozens of design iterations so that they could visualize how each very small modification affected the gear or bearing performance.

The end result was that they came to understand more about the finer details of gear and bearing design in a few days than I did in a few years. I agree that it is imperative that engineers have an extensive understanding of the physics, math and chemistry principles that they will use in their work. Otherwise it's the classic case of garbage-in-garbage-out. But current bearing and gear design software codes have been thoroughly vetted and validated by many decades worth of empirical data. So even in the hands of less experienced designers, a very good design result can still be had in a very short amount of time.

If a $20K software saves you one redesign cycle, costing $50K and taking 3 months, isn't that money well spent?

Regards,
Terry