Procedures for Determining the Tooth Bending Strength

arious procedures and methods can be used to determine the tooth bending strength, some of which differ considerably from each other due to their type and the required effort (Refs. 6,9,14,17,29). One possibility is to carry out experimental investigations in the form of operational and analogue tests to investigate the load capacity (Ref. 17). The tooth bending strength of the tested gears is then derived from the experimental results and the consideration of the occurring tooth root stresses, which can be measured or determined using various calculation methods (Refs. 14,17).

Operational and Analogy Tests
In the industrial environment as well as in the field of research and development, different test rigs are used to test gears and gearboxes. For the investigation of the tooth bending strength, the test rig concepts of the running and pulsator test have prevailed, as they are more economical and ecological than testing on the final product or components of the final product (Ref. 17).

For investigations of the tooth bending strength, the analogy test in the pulsator test rig, also called pulsator test, is often used, since the costs, the time, and the complexity of the investigation method are reduced compared to the running test (Ref. 17). Another advantage of the pulsator test is the decoupling of the variable meshing conditions in the tooth contact, which reduces the number of influencing variables and sources of error on the determination of the tooth bending strength of gears (Ref. 17). This makes it possible to carry out investigations on the fundamental influences of the material and process chain selection as well as the gear geometry on the tooth bending strength (Ref. 17). Due to the changed contact conditions, a conversion factor of fcorr = 0.9 must be considered for the transferability of the pulsator results to the running test (Refs. 17,30).