Bi-directional and uni-directional bending fatigue performance of unreinforced and carbon fiber reinforced polyamide 66 spur gears

Gears are generally subjected to uni-directional cyclic loads, however, in applications like actuators of satellite launchers, gears experience bi-directional cyclic loads due to its rotation in both clockwise and counter clockwise directions. In the present study, bidirectional and uni-directional bending fatigue performance of injection molded unreinforced and carbon fiber reinforced polyamide 66 gears were evaluated using a test rig developed in-house. During testing, torque applied and the angular displacement of the gears were continuously recorded. The net surface temperature measured by an infrared camera was higher for the gears subjected to bi-directional loading as compared to uni-directional loading. Reinforced gears exhibited about 84% lower temperature than that of unreinforced gears, due to lesser material hysteresis and better thermal conductivity. Fatigue failure of unreinforced gears exhibited almost straight root cracks and confirmed ductile failure. Fatigue failure of reinforced gears exhibited tortuous crack path due to the existence of reinforced fibers. For both the type of loads, carbon fiber reinforced gears exhibited superior bending performance than unreinforced gears (2-51 times) due to its improved mechanical and thermal properties. Significant fatigue life reduction (83-99%) of the tested gears, were observed when subjected to bi-directional loading when compared to that of uni-directional loading.