Gear Distortion Analysis Due to Heat Treatment Process.

One way to extend the life time of the gear is minimizing the distortion during the manufacturing process. One of the most important processes in manufacturing to produce gears is heat treatment process. The purpose of this study is to analyze the distortion of the gear after heat treatment process. The material of gear is AISI 1045, and it was designed with the module (m) 1.75, and a number of teeth (z) 29. Gear was heat-treated in the furnace at a temperature of 800°C, holding time of 30 minutes, and then quenched in water. Furthermore, surface hardening process was also performed on gear teeth at a temperature of 820°C and holding time of 35 seconds and the similar procedure of analysis was conducted. The hardness of gear after heat treatment average 63.2 HRC and the teeth surface hardness after gear to induction hardening was 64.9 HRC at the case depth 1 mm. The microstructure of tested gear are martensitic and pearlite. The highest distortion on tooth thickness to upper than 0.063 can cause high precision at the tooth contact is not appropriate. Besides the shrinkage of tooth thickness will also affect to contact angle because the size of gear tolerance was not standardized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]