When industrial power transmission equipment breaks down, it’s critical to not only repair the problem but to determine its cause so you can prevent it from happening again. Of course, that’s easier said than done. While damage to your Falk gear drive may be easy to spot, determining the root cause can require some careful investigative work.
When a Falk gear drive fails, you can learn a lot simply by examining the condition of the gear teeth, as this can often tell you why or how the problem occurred. The American Gear Manufacturers Association distinguishes four primary types of gear damage in power transmission equipment:
1. Wear. When the metal where gear teeth are in contact with each other is worn away, usually in a fairly uniform manner, this is known as wear failure. While it is normal for some wear to occur within a Falk gear drive, the severity and causes can vary. For example, polishing is a type of wear that occurs over a long period of time when contact between gear teeth causes the surface of the teeth to become smooth, whereas corrosive wear shows up as pitting and is caused by chemicals in the lubricant. Adjusting the lubricant system can help prevent many types of gear wear.
2. Surface fatigue. Surface fatigue occurs when the gear is exposed to continual stress that the metal is unable to withstand. It’s noticeable by the loss of metal and formation of cavities on the gear teeth. Surface fatigue can often be prevented or remedied within a Falk gear drive by breaking in new gears with reduced loads and speeds, avoiding overloading, and, if necessary, hardening the surface of the gear to increase its strength.
3. Plastic flow. When high contact stresses cause the gear tooth surface to become deformed, it is known as plastic flow failure. This type of damage is most likely to occur with softer materials, although hardened gears aren’t immune. Plastic flow failure can cause ripples, ridges or rounded tips to appear on the surface of the gear teeth and can usually be alleviated by hardening the gear surface or reducing contact stress.
4. Breakage. When your Falk gear drive is overloaded or stressed beyond its endurance limit, gear teeth can break. Often these types of failures are random and unpredictable – such as when a sudden misalignment or a failure elsewhere within the power transmission equipment occurs – which means there’s not much you can do to prevent them.
Posted under Machinery Maintenance on Thursday, June 30th, 2011