Knowing When Enough Is Enough Predicting Impending Bending Failure in a Test Environment

摘要

Detection of impending gear tooth failure is of interest to every entity that utilizes geared transmissions. However, it is of particular significance at the Gear Research Institute (GRI), where sponsored efforts are conducted to establish gear material endurance limits, utilizing gear fatigue tests. Consequently, knowing when a gear is about to fail in each and every test, in a consistent manner, is essential for producing reliable and useful data for the gear industry. To accomplish this end, researchers at GRI and the Drivetrain Technology Center (DTC) at ARL/Penn State have developed a metric called the Average Log Ratio (ALR), described further in the following article. This ALR accurately predicts impending bending failure and is being further developed to predict contact fatigue failures.