Design stress analysis of metallic and non metallic spur gear

Gears are the very useful components in mechanical power transmission system and industrial rotating machinery. A spur gear generally subjected to two types of stresses like bending stresses and contact stresses which are causes teeth failure during meshing with another tooth. Gears are generally made from metallic materials but recently advanced polymers materials were developed which have sufficient strength and properties similar to the metallic materials so it can easily replace the metallic gears if some care will be taken. Nylon, polycarbonate, acetals and delrin are the structure polymers materials are used for gears in printing and robotics mechanism with good functionality but polymers gears are not used in heavy loading type application. Specially polymers gives extra benefits compared to metallic gears like less noise-vibration, low requirement of maintenance-lubrication, low cost and easy manufacturing. Static finite element analysis requires performing the design optimization process on both materials. This paper presents the design optimization methodology step by step for comparative analysis of metallic and polymer gears using static finite element analysis.