Insights from the AGMA Fall Technical Meeting

Held alongside MPT Expo 2025, the AGMA Fall Technical Meeting (FTM) remains the gear industry’s most focused forum for peer-reviewed research in design, manufacturing, and performance. This year’s sessions highlight a continued push toward fully integrated design-tomanufacture workflows that address rising demands for noise control, power density, thermal stability, and complex geometries. Several papers explore microgeometry and surface modifications, particularly in relation to load distribution and excitation behavior. Researchers present strategies for twist control in grinding using advanced kinematic paths and adaptive flank corrections derived from loaded tooth contact analysis. These methods aim to balance surface finish, tool wear, and topological fidelity across various shift and dressing strategies. A recurring theme involves extending loaded contact analysis to nonstandard gear forms, including asymmetric, hypoid, and non-involute geometries. These studies adapt existing meshing algorithms to account for discontinuities in curvature and variable stiffness profiles— moving toward predictive models that bridge the gap between digital design and manufacturable reality. Other technical highlights include: • Closed-loop workflows that integrate inspection data with simulation, enabling profile compensation through CMM feedback. • Investigations into surface integrity following honing and superfinishing, with a focus on residual stress and subsurface structure. • Development of non-traditional test rigs for high-speed, smallmodule gears, addressing inertia effects, backlash, and thermal behavior in miniature systems. The 2025 FTM program reflects a discipline that continues to evolve its toolset—pushing measurement limits, expanding simulation capabilities, and refining manufacturing precision under increasingly demanding operating conditions.