Learning about Gears

[Robahr24]

Hi, I am new in this forum. Right now I work with a company called Horsburgh and Scott in Cleveland; its one of the top manufactures of gears in the world. I started college in cleveland to become a mechanical engineer and want to learn as much as possible about gears before I start my job in the quality department in the spring. Is there any sites that you guys can recommend me that are very basic where I can get start understanding gears and the development of them?

 

[tbuelna]

Robahr24,

Start with the classics: Buckingham and Dudley. For more recent texts try Khiralla or Litvin.

The QA department is a great place for an engineer to learn about gear design. Good gear design is all about accuracy. But even with modern computers and analytical codes, high performance gear design is still more art than science. Any numbskull can design a simple gear mesh. But it takes a true engineering artist with decades of experience to know all of the mod's and tweeks required to get a gear mesh to really work well. Find the company experts in gear geometry, bearings and metallurgy and learn everything they know. That will be a good start.

Good luck. And congratulations, the US needs more good gear designers.

 

[JCJackson]

The best book I have used that covers all the real basics in simple language is "GEARS" by H. E. Merrit, an English engineer, published by Pitman. I believe it is currently out of print, but a good library should be able to get a copy. It's treatmnt of bevels is a bit lacking, but they are a function of the machines cutting them; Gleason or Klingelnberg, as opposed to any design input. Dudley tends to waffle on a bit. Another good referance for cylindricals (spur & helicals) and their manufacture is the MAAG (Zurich)Gear book. It is particularly good for explaining how the involute is applied to gears. You can get details of how to get it from their web site.

 

[dinjin]

Gear Design Manufacturing and Inspection Manual
Over 500 figures and graphs.

ISBN Number: 978-1-56091-006-0
Date Published: February 1990
656 Pages
4 Sections

http://www.sae.org/servlets/productDetail?PROD_TYP=BOOK&PROD_CD=AE-15

 

[plasgears]

I gained much insight by working with the PowerGear program and making iterations on percent thickness gear vs. pinion, and extended addendum on the pinion. I learned that modified gears was a given in well engineered gear systems.

Another insight was the value of fiber/brass gears in the early stages to attentuate noise. We had a challenging project for noise reduction that benefitted from soft steel pinions running against fiber/brass gears. Gear noise very nearly dropped out.

Another insight for long life: In plastic gear systems, a soft unreinforced nylon 6/6 worm runs well against a neat Delrin gear [yes, Delrin]. It is counter-intuitive compared to metal gears.

 

[TVP]

I have found the following to be very useful information sources related to gears:

Gear Technology magazine

http://www.geartechnology.com/

Gear Solutions magazine

http://www.gearsolutionsonline.com/

NASA Glenn Research Center Mechanical Components Branch

http://www.grc.nasa.gov/

http://WWW/5900/5950/Research.htm

Click on the Publications link at the top of the NASA page to access some of the recent publications as well as some of the most popular historical publications (Litvin's tome on gearing, etc.). There are two other sites for searching and downloading historical NASA documents, technical papers, etc., with hundreds available on the topic of gears and gearing:

http://gltrs.grc.nasa.gov/ask.htm

http://ntrs.nasa.gov/search.jsp

 

[ScottishMet]

The American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA)- of which H&S as a member - offers on-line training courses.

http://www.agma.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Online_Education

 

[CageGear]

Horsburgh & Scott is a great company. Look up Tim Gill and learn as much from him as possible... You will be well on your way to gear greatness!