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By ROBERT L. ERRICHELLO of Geartech | Mar 1, 2000 12:00 PM This tells how engineers use the powerful analysis techniques described in a previous article to solve a variety of gear failure problems Using a step-by-step analysis process, engineers correctly diagnose many gear failures and, more importantly, develop solutions that prevent such failures from happening again. The basic steps in this process, which a previous article (How to analyze gear failures) describes in detail, include: Inspect failed parts. Determine type of failure. Conduct tests and perform calculations. Form and test conclusions. The following examples demonstrate how engineers have used this basic approach to solve gear failures in various applications wind turbines, waste water treatment plants, hydroturbines, and tunneling machines.
The inspection revealed several facts: On each pinion, the first broken tooth (first one to be loaded as the gear rotates) had a smooth fracture surface, which is characteristic of slow crack growth, whereas the trailing tooth had a rougher surface, indicating faster crack growth, Figure 2. Teeth adjacent to the fracture had extensive macropitting, whereas teeth away from the fractures were undamaged, except for mild abrasion. Working surfaces of the teeth that were retrieved from the oil sumps had no pitting or other damage. Color photos of the failed pinions disclosed copper plating on the tooth ends and in the adjacent radius with the integral shaft, commonly known as the grinding relief radius for the bearing journal, Figure 1. The copper plating was at the same end of the teeth, and in the same area, where the fatigue cracks originated. On the two undamaged pinions, copper plating was present in the grinding relief radius, but stopped short of the tooth ends. Gears from the two gearboxes that operated normally had no apparent damage. Contact patterns taken from these gears with marking compound were centered, showing that the teeth were properly aligned. These facts led to the following conclusions: The primary mode of failure was bending fatigue originating at the tooth ends that were copper plated. The lead tooth failed first, by slow crack growth. As this tooth cracked, it transferred load to the following tooth. This following tooth cracked more rapidly, because it was overloaded due to transferred load from the lead tooth. Macropitting on teeth adjacent to the fractured teeth was a secondary failure mode that was caused by overloading due to loss of load sharing. This conclusion was substantiated by the lack of pitting on teeth located away from the fractures and on the broken teeth retrieved from the oil sumps. The gears were properly aligned. Normally, misalignment is suspected when fractures originate at the ends of gear teeth. In this case, however, the wear patterns, tooth contact patterns, and bearing conditions all indicated good tooth alignment. Based on these conclusions, investigators formed a hypothesis that the pinion teeth failed, because the copper plating prevented their ends from being properly hardened. Copper plating is used to mask areas that shouldnt be hardened. The copper prevents carburizing during heat treatment so these areas develop low hardness. It is likely that the bearing journals of the pinions were plated (to minimize hardness and ease machining) by lowering them into the plating solution. Apparently, some pinions were lowered too far into the solution so the tooth ends were inadvertently plated. A metallurgical laboratory then tested the gear teeth to confirm (or disprove) the hypothesis. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) equipped with an energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) revealed striations on the tooth fracture surfaces, proving that the fractures were caused by fatigue. An EDX analysis confirmed the presence of copper plating at the fractures. Metallurgical sections were prepared by cutting and polishing the ends of teeth from both damaged and undamaged pinions. Hardness surveys on these sections confirmed that the copper plating prevented carburization of the ends of the fractured teeth, so that hardness was limited to 40 HRC. On the undamaged teeth, however, the hardness gradient ranged from 60 HRC at the surface to a core hardness of 40 HRC, which is normal.
Based on these tests, it was concluded that the failures were caused by improper heat treatment due to copper plating on the tooth ends. The resulting low hardness and low strength allowed the bending fatigue failures to occur. The wind turbine owner subsequently found copper plating on the tooth ends in four more gearboxes. Technicians replaced these pinions two years ago, and the gears have operated with no further failures.
The gear noise could be heard over the roar of the diesel engine and the scream of the blower. After shutting down the drive, investigators found severe macropitting on both pinion and gear teeth, Figure 3. Pitting was uniform across the face, indicating that the gears were properly aligned. It was obvious that the gears were noisy because of the pitted tooth surfaces. To prevent further damage, the owners shut down the drives and sent both gearboxes to a vendor for immediate repair. Disassembly of the gearboxes revealed that, except for extensive pitting on one side of the gear teeth, all components were in good condition. Tooth hardness was within specifications. Measurement of the undamaged, backside of the gear teeth showed that tooth accuracy, AGMA Quality 11, and surface roughness, 25 in, were appropriate for the application. Laboratory analysis of the gearbox lubricant showed that its viscosity was ISO VG 68, which conforms to the gear vendors recommendation. Calculations according to ANSI/AGMA standard 2001-B88 (spur and helical gears) showed that the gears were lightly loaded, so their pitting life should have been more than adequate. However, the calculated specific film thickness ( l) of the lubricant was only 0.4, indicating that the gears had only boundary lubrication. The estimated probability of wear, Pw, was calculated as over 80%. The ANSI/AGMA lubrication standard 9005-D94 recommends a viscosity of ISO VG 150 for such an application. This would increase the specific film thickness to 1.0 and decrease the wear probability to less than 5%.
Investigators concluded that the gear teeth pitting and resultant noise were caused by the low viscosity of the lubricant, and recommended changing the viscosity to ISO VG 150. The plant replaced the gears and switched to the higher viscosity lubricant over 5 years ago, and the gearboxes have operated since then without a reoccurrence of pitting or noise.
scuffing, and the operational logs that showed the load rejection tests were performed after only 2 hr of running. Based on these conclusions, the consultant recommended gear design changes to reduce the risk of scuffing, plus gear run-in under reduced loads to improve the tooth surface finish before applying full load. After several years of litigation, the turbine supplier and gear vendor finally conceded that scuffing caused the gear noise. The gears have been redesigned, and replacement gears were recently applied to the drive.
retainer. The silicon and aluminum probably came from environmental dust, and the iron particles were probably fine wear debris. Tribometer experiments showed that polishing wear is fine-scale abrasion promoted by a combination of a fine abrasive and a gear oil with chemically active additives. These results led to the conclusion that abrasives became embedded in the teeth of the ring gear and in the bearing retainer, causing wear on the planet gear teeth and the bearing rollers. It was recommended that the currently used sulfur-phosphorous lubricating oil be replaced by a less-aggressive borate lubricant with a higher viscosity to increase the lubricant film thickness. A second recommendation was to change the oil frequently to remove abrasives. Subsequent lab tests followed by several months of service have shown that these measures eliminated the polishing wear. Note: This case history is reported in AGMA paper No. 90 FTM 5. Robert L. Errichello is president of Geartech,