Gear Production
Issue link: http://gear.epubxp.com/i/556595
10—GEAR Production Supplement F E A T U R E By Lawrence S. Gould | Contributing Editor Sophisticated Software for Solid Gear Design Whether your computer platform is standalone or part of a suite, desktop or on the cloud, there's a gear design package developed specifcally to meet your needs. I f it's mechanical and it moves, it probably has a gear inside. Gears are deceptively simple items, but not so simple to design—if the eventual goal is to have a long-lasting, effcient, vibration-free, quiet-running mechanical device. Gears come in many different pair types, in all diameters and thicknesses, and they're made of a variety of materials. They don't even have to be circular. Getting a handle on this variety in gears— what's called designing and engineering—is crucial for the proper working of increasingly sophisticated and effcient moving machines, including electric and hybrid vehicles, wind turbines, consumer appliances, aerospace and defense, and so much more. "For the engineering teams tasked with developing new powertrains, resources are being pushed harder than ever and development processes are now very much under scrutiny," say offcials at U.K.-based Romax Technology. Gear design software provides so many benefts, continues Romax, including "more rapid gearbox concept modeling and analysis, fewer errors, improved processes, reduced rework, faster time to market, and lower overall development costs." Today, these benefts come not only from the features found in gear design software, but also from the availability of the software on so many different computer systems: standalone desktop, part of a desktop suite, online, and even software as a service. Standalone Software From the Swiss company KISSsoft AG comes the eponymous KISSsoft software for sizing machine elements (gears, shafts, bearings, connecting elements, springs, and both chains and belts). Sizing calculations are a function of individual parameters (profle offset, tolerances, wheelbase, etc.). For certain gears, the calculations can be quite extensive. For example, the calculation of Flank fractures can cause a gear to fail. The fank fracture calculation according to ISO/DTR 19042 has been added to the latest KISSsoft release to minimize these types of crack formations in cylindrical gears and bevel gears.