West Australian Branch Seminar Report -- 30 July 2014 - Gears & Shafts 2014

摘要

The seminar format consisted of an Industry breakfast (which delegates could choose to attend separately), a half-day seminar (which included four technical presentations) followed by a lunch, and then a plant visit to Hofmann Engineering in the afternoon. The highlight of the industry breakfast was a Keynote Presentation from Erich Hofmann, the Managing Director of Hofmann Engineering. Hofmann presented an excellent overview of the strong interplay between materials and heat treatment methods, and the direct benefits for gearbox design. In one series of slides he clearly demonstrated how the advent of better steels and improved heat treatment processes, evolving from case hardening cast steels through to full heat treatment and chemically enhanced case hardening of forged steels, has allowed the size and weight of gearboxes for the same power rating to be dramatically reduced (from 8,000kg to just over 1,000kg).