Experimental investigations on nylon based composite gear materials

Abstract

Polymer composite gears find ever-increasing applications because of lower material and manufacturing cost with lesser weight compared with the metallic gears. It permits easy and economic fabrication of complex shaped products using an injection molding process. With the advancement of technology, there is an everlasting demand for an economical, lightweight, harder and stronger material for the automobile application. Hence, the reinforced polymer offers high mechanical strength and suitable for structural load applications. The polymer composites are the combination of the soft base material with hard reinforcement and found the special interest because of its specific strength at room temperature. The polymer matrix composite gears are becoming attractive in automobile industries due to lightweight, low cost and easier fabrication. There is ever increasing demand for modern technology for lighter and stronger gears. When reinforced gears are used in power transmission applications, the surface condition of the gears plays a chief role in deciding the performance. Its performance is affected by the operating parameters and environment condition. Many researchers have carried out research on the issues related to the performance of the polymer composite gears. The structure and property relationship Polymer Matrix Composite (PMC) is found to be complex. This is due to the presences of more than one phase in the composite and its variation of physical and structural features. The composites are inhomogeneous and anisotropic materials. The heterogeneity of the polymer matrix and the reinforcing fiber is enormous. Even there is a large variation in Young modulus values of the matrix and reinforcement. Its thermal coefficients also show variations in the ratio of 100:1. These make the composites to be anisotropic at the microscopic level. newline