Experimental Investigation on Acoustic Emission From Functionally Graded Materials Based Polymer Gear

Abstract

Polymer gears have positioned themselves as serious alternatives to traditional metal gears in a wide variety of applications. They have less weight, lower inertia and run much quieter than their metal counterparts. This paper investigates the leverage of fabrication techniques of polymer gear in the noise generation during operation. Polymer gears are fabricated by two different techniques i.e. conventional technique and horizontal centrifugal casting technique. Homogeneous gear is fabricated by conventional technique whereas horizontal centrifugal casting technique is used to fabricate functionally graded materials (FGMs) based thermoplastic spur gear. Polyamide materials filled with 15 wt% and 30 wt% glass fibers are used to fabricate homogeneous, and FGM gears. Unfilled Polyamide gear is also fabricated for comparative study. Gears are run at various speed and torque combinations. The range of the speed and torque is 500-1400 rpm and 0.8-2.6 Nm, respectively. Sound power levels are recorded and analyzed for various running combinations of fabricated gears.