This paper describes the production, quality and tests of plastic gears made by fused filament fabrication (FFF). Different 3D printers of low and high quality and four different materials were tested: PLA, ABS, PA and PA carbon fiber composite. After optimizing the print parameters, various gears were manufactured and tested. The geometry and the test procedure were executed based on the VDI 2736 standard. This paper is a feasibility study of the fatigue strength of different gears. There is no material data set for the specific FFF-Materials and certain printers. The results show, that the quality of the printing process and the accuracy of the geometry are not responsible for the failure mode. The most important parameter is the friction coefficient of the different materials. Due to friction the tooth root will heat up and effect the material properties. PLA gears failed due to the low melting temperature, whereas ABS and PA gears failed on tooth root fracture.
The layer-by-layer principle of the additive manufacturing (AM) technology of Laser-Powder-Bed-Fusion (LPBF) creates new opportunities in the design and manufacturing of efficient gear components. For example, integrating a cooling system can increase the safety against scuffing or reduce the amount of required lubrication and thus the splashing losses. Quenched and tempered steels or case-hardened steels are commonly used in the fabrication of gear components. However, the availability of these alloys for LPBF processing is still limited. The development of suitable LPBF metal gears (with a Gear Research Centre (FZG) type A geometry) out of quenched and tempered 30CrNiMo8 steel with internal cooling channels shows the possibility of significantly increasing the safety factor against scuffing. This work includes the development of a suitable cooling strategy, material development, the setup of a suitable test infrastructure and the analysis of the LPBF gears tested for scuffing.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.