Gear Fatigue Test Results

Back in December we sent our standard spur test gears up to Newcastle University to have their fatigue life tested.
The good news is that not only do we meet the standard in terms of fatigue allowable on the gears, we’re about double the permissible stress that we were taking as our minimum allowable, a remarkable achievement!
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[@srscott10]

Awesome!! We defiantly want those gears to be much stronger than required. Unforeseen stresses happen at the most inconvenient times.

[@ericjwhitney5020]

Helicopter transmission gear teeth are typically designed to be fatigue critical for Hertzian contact stresses, not reversed bending. So I'm surprised you went down the long path of component testing in advance of the flying prototype, instead of relying on widely accepted AGMA data and processes in this case.

[@sheepdog1102]

Well done sir 😊

[@jonathanjenkins8630]

Very good!

[@bertruttan129]

Good, lots of headroom in fatigue and stress loads are always a good thing.

[@steffanjansenvanvuuren3257]

minimum allowable stress? What do you mean minimum allowable?
You mean Absolute maximum allowable stress before failure?

[@barkeg050]

I guess he is speaking in terms of time since it is fatigue testing

[@chippyjohn1]

it is minimum stress for the test. The gears must be able to tolerate a minimum before they are passed. They will test a certain torque loading over a certain rpm, say 6000nm at 2000 rpm for a certain amount of time. If there is no failure at that rated amount they pass, which is the minimum, if they are still in tact without any defect at 12000nm it has doubled the minimum test requirements.

[@antonshomshor6536]

They’re too strong? Make em lighter! …Though as a pilot I’ll take the insurance and leave that extra pound of luggage behind.