Experimental Evaluation of Stress Intensity Factors in Spur Gear Teeth

In most engineering applications, gears are the most widely used machine elements for the transmission of power and motion from one shaft to another. Hence it is evident that there is a need for reliability and longer service-life, which requires precise knowledge of the stress field developed in the gear tooth. However this stress analysis becomes more complex when a small crack appears after overloading or fatigue conditions. It is therefore critical to calculate either the remaining life of the cracked gear under the same loading conditions, or the new maximum failsafe operating load to cover the initially calculated service time.