The influence of surface coatings on the tooth tip deflection of polymer gears

Abstract

When designing gear drives made of polymer, the tooth tip deflection is a crucial parameter in respect to the proper gear drive operation. Excessive tooth tip deflection can lead to serious disturbances of gear meshing and consequently to increased noise and wear of the teeth flanks. In such cases the tooth tip deflection can be reduced through the use of stiff surface coatings on the tooth flanks. In this paper the influence of different coating materials and thicknesses on the tooth tip deflection of polymer gears is analysed using comprehensive finite element computational analysis. The numerical results obtained are then used to define an approximate equation for the calculation of gear tooth tip deflection for the coating material used and the thickness of the surface coating layer. The results show that the tooth tip deflection decreases with large values of the coating material Young's modulus and with the coating layer thickness.