A Study of Spur Gear Pitting Formation and Life Prediction: Wear December 2004
A Study of Spur Gear Pitting Formation and Life Prediction: Wear December 2004
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2 AUTHORS:
Kubilay Aslantas
Suleyman Tasgetiren
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Abstract
In this study, a numerical prediction on pitting formation is carried out in spur gear made from austempered ductile iron. General twodimensional rolling sliding contact situations are considered for the development of the analytical model. The problem is assumed under
linear elastic fracture mechanics and the finite element method is used for numerical solutions. Mixed mode stress intensity factors KI and
KII for cyclic loading are evaluated and related to crack extension by a Paris-type equation. The maximum tangential stress criterion is used
to determine the crack-turn-angle during crack propagation under cyclic loading.
A series of experimental study is also carried out to determine the pitting formation life. Test specimens were first austenitized in salt bath at
900 C for 90 min after which they were quenched in salt bath at 325 and 425 C, for 60 min. A comparison is carried out between numerical
and experimental results.
2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Spur gear; Austempered ductile iron; Pitting; Fatigue; Finite element analysis
1. Introduction
Rolling contact fatigue cracks are one of the most important problems for the gear industry. Under rolling contact,
various surface damages (pitting, spalling and cracking) occur and also cracks develop in the machine units, thus leading to loss of serviceability of the machine part. Pitting failures are formed in all rolling pairs such as gear, rail-wheel
etc.
Austempered ductile iron has recently been developed for
an increasing number of the engineering applications such as
gears, crankshaft, connecting rods and other heavy machinery and transportation equipment because they offer excellent
combinations of high strength, ductility, toughness, fatigue
strength and wear resistance over other grades of cast irons
[1]. Mechanical properties of austempered ductile irons depend on the heat treatment conditions, graphite size and the
distribution of defects in the microstructure.
Modelling studies of crack propagation and spall formation based on the fracture mechanics have been carried out
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 272 228 1235; fax: +90 272 228 1235.
E-mail address: [email protected] (K. Aslantas).
0043-1648/$ see front matter 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.wear.2004.08.005
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E =
2Ep Eg
Eg (1 p2 ) + Ep (1 g2 )
R =
R p Rg
Rp + R g
(2)
(3)
P0 =
2. Numerical procedures
c2 =
(1)
where P is the applied normal force, E the equivalent elasticity modulus and R is the equivalent radius. E and R are
1/2
P0 (c2 x2 )
p(x) =
c
(4)
Table 1
Chemical composition (wt.%) of the gear material
C
Si
Mn
P
S
Mg
Cr
Ni
Mo
Cu
Al
Ti
Sn
3.40
2.69
0.19
0.02
0.01
0.044
0.04
0.73
0.23
0.87
0.015
0.004
0.007
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Fig. 2. (a) The location of the nodes used to calculate the stress intensity factors; (b) six-node quarter point isoparametric elements at the crack tip.
G
+1
2
[4(v2 v4 ) + (v5 v3 )]
L
(5)
G
2
KII =
[4(u2 u4 ) + (u5 u3 )]
+1 L
3 4, for plane strain
= 3
1+ ,
for plane stress
(6)
(7)
2
1
K
K
I
I
= 2 tan1
+ 8
(8)
4 KII
KII
2.3. Finite element model of the gear
The finite element method has been widely used to solve
problems in linear elastic fracture mechanics. The main diffi-
Fig. 3. (a) Finite element mesh; (b) the subsurface crack in gear tooth and surface loads effect on tooth surface.
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Fig. 4. Microstructure of the ductile iron material: (a) as-cast; (b) austempered at 325 C for 60 min.
culty in these calculations stems from the occurrence of infinite stresses at the crack tip. An eight-node isoparametric element is applied in a plane strain configuration that represents
the contact between the gear and pinion. In the mesh around
the subsurface crack, shown in Fig. 3a, six-node isoparametric elements with mid-side nodes adjacent to the crack tip are
used.
The gear is modelled as a half cylinder. The displacements at the bottom are fixed in the x and z directions. The
effect of the pinion is shown as elliptic loading according
to the Hertz theory. The position of the load is shown with
d which is the distance between the centre of the crack
and the maximum load in the elliptic variation. In Fig. 3b,
the depth of the subsurface crack is shown with h. The
depth is determined by stress analysis for uncracked finite
element model. Von-Mises yield criteria is used for the stress
analysis.
The simulations were performed with the FRANC2D [13]
finite element code. Among the variety of capabilities, a
unique feature of FRANC2D is the ability to model a crack
in the structure; 1080 elements and 3311 nodes were used for
the entire mesh.
3. Experimental study
3.1. Material
The material used in the present study is a nodular graphite
cast iron alloyed with Ni and Mo. The chemical composition of the material is given in Table 1. The microstructure of the as-cast material is shown in Fig. 4. The as-cast
material has 80% pearlitic and 20% ferritic structure. Gear
Table 2
Heat treatment and mechanical properties of the gear material
Sample Austempering
temperature ( C)
Hardness
HRC
A
325
B
425
As-cast
42
37
23
804
565
493
1228
862
780
4.3
9.2
7.1
Number of teeth
Pitch diameter (mm)
Tooth depth (mm)
Module
Pressure angle ( )
Distance of centres (mm)
Width (mm)
Test gear
Pinion
41
123
5.41
3
20
87
19
17
51
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Sample
C (mm/cycle (MPa m))
A
B
As-cast
1012
1.06
3.79 1013
2.07 1014
m
5.1
6.5
7.01
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ing. Nodule is the crucial factor for crack initiation in austempered ductile iron materials. Dommarca et al. [16] stated that
the crack nucleation resistance of austempered ductile iron
is lower than that of steel. Because austempered ductile iron
materials behave as a metal matrix composite, cyclic loading causes to weaken the interface bond between the matrix
and the nodule. Therefore, microcracks emanate from the
graphite nodules and grow to link with other graphites.
The direction of microcrack changes depending on the
presence of nodules near the crack tip. For this reason, the
pitting failures have irregular form. The typically smooth
spall surface observed in bearing steel such as SAE 52100
[16] contrasts to the irregular one observed in austempered
ductile irons. Dommarca et al. have also observed that spall
failures occur as V-shape pointing opposite to rolling direction in SAE 52100. It can be seen from Figs. 5 and 6 that the
fracture surfaces of the pitting failures have irregular morphology in the materials studied in the present analysis. In
addition, Figs. 6 and 7 also show the subsurface crack propagation due to cyclic contact loadings in black zone indicated
with arrows.
where C and m are the material parameters that are determined experimentally. For a growing subsurface crack under
constant amplitude compressive loads, the conditions at the
crack tip are defined by the current value of K. For crack
growth due to mixed mode cyclic loading, K is defined by
Tanaka [19] as:
4
Keff
= KI4 + 8KII4
Fig. 7. SEM micrograph of pitting failure on gear tooth surface (as-cast gear
material).
(9)
(10)
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Fig. 8. Variation of KI and KII at the left and right crack tips with respect to load position.
(11)
(12)
Fig. 9. Variation of KII with respect to the crack length and the load position
in as-cast gear material for right crack tip.
Experiment
Numerical
Pitting size
(m)
Number of cycles
(cycle 106 )
450
5.168
3.238
1.672
325 C 400
425 C 460
As-cast 500
4.700
3.500
1.850
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Fig. 10. Fatigue crack growth of subsurface crack and variation of KII values at crack tips.
Fig. 11. SEM photograph of the cross-section, austempered at 325 C (a), as-cast (b) and numerically obtained pitting form of the tooth surface.
5. Conclusions
The present study considers the pitting failure model based
on the finite element analysis and linear elastic fracture mechanics. Also the effect of austempering process on the pitting formation in spur gear made of ductile iron is analysed.
A series of experimental study is carried out to determine the
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