Search results

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate and compare powder and wire laser material deposition (LMD) processes.

In the present paper, Inconel 718 tensile test probes were built layer by layer using a longitudinal strategy, and the quality of the deposited material was characterized for both wire and powder LMD processes. The measured data during the deposition tests have been used for comparing the efficiency of both powder and wire LMD processes. Afterwards, to evaluate the mechanical properties of the parts generated by means of both processes, standard tensile tests were carried out. Furthermore, other factors have been evaluated, such as process reliability or presence of residual material, after the deposition process.

Results show a higher efficiency of the wire LMD process, and even similar ultimate tensile stress values were reached for both processes; powder LMD parts resulted in a more brittle nature.

In the present paper, a thorough analysis that compared both processes has been carried out. The results obtained will help in the future when choosing between wire and powder LMD. The main points of the wealth of knowledge generated with these research efforts are highlighted herein.

The lower density of powder metallurgical (PM) gears compared to solid steel gears leads to not only a lower weight but also a lower load-carrying capacity. Therefore, PM gears are cold rolled before hardening to increase the density in the highly stressed surface zone and, thus, the flank load-carrying capacity. A further approach to increase the flank load-carrying capacity is the reduction of friction and wear in the tooth contact. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the hard rolling process as a new manufacturing step in the PM process chain to influence the boundary layer.

The investigation includes the new process of hard rolling, the variation of the cooling lubricant in the hard rolling process and the evaluation of its influence on the material properties and the flank load-carrying capacity. Therefore, the additives of the cooling lubricant are varied regarding the sulfur and phosphorous content. The load-carrying capacity is evaluated on disk-on-disk test rig and the material properties are evaluated by metallographic tests and boundary layer.

The results of the specimen characteristics in the micro and nano range show a significant influence of hard rolling on the residual stresses and the chemical surface composition. Because of hard rolling, residual compressive stresses as well as roughness are reduced and the flank load-carrying capacity is increased by high phosphorous content of the cooling lubricant.

This paper investigates a new manufacturing step to increase resource efficiency by increasing the flank load-carrying capacity of spur gears.

The purpose of this study is to optimize high-strength gears produced by powder metallurgical process and to provide a material model to predict the tooth root bending fatigue strength. Powder metal (PM) technology offers great opportunities for the reduction of the carbon footprint and improvement of the cost efficiency of gear production. PM gears can achieve flank load-carrying capacities comparable to wrought steel gears if the loaded volume is fully densified. Still, the tooth root strength is of particular importance.

The tooth root stresses can be minimized by optimizing the tooth root geometry. This usually leads to a target conflict, as fully optimized tooth root geometries cannot be manufactured by generating processes such as hobbing, generating-grinding or rolling. To use the increase in tooth root load-carrying capacity of fully optimized root geometry on PM gears, a non-generating method for surface densifying is needed. The shot-peening process is used as an alternative densification process for PM gears. The properties of both shot peened and cold-rolled PM gears are analyzed and compared. To quantify the effect of both manufacturing processes, the tooth root bending fatigue strength will be evaluated and compared to wrought gears.

From the fatigue strength perspective, a material model is developed, which is able to predict local endurable stress amplitudes. The model is gained through regression varying carbon content, density and size effect on bending specimens.

It is transferable to PM gears of the same material using a load transfer coefficient.