SAE TECHNICAL PAPER SERIES

1999-01-0292

Achieving AGMA 10 Quality Level for Automotive Gear Applications

Todd A. Bequette
Burgess-Norton Mfg. Co.

Scott M. Clase
GMC/Delphi Energy & Engine Mgmt. Systems

Reprinted From: P/M Applications (SP-1447)

International Congress and Exposition Detroit, Michigan March 1-4, 1999

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1999-01-0292

Achieving AGMA 10 Quality Level for Automotive Gear Applications

Todd A. Bequette
Burgess-Norton Mfg. Co.

Scott M. Clase
GMC/Delphi Energy & Engine Mgmt. Systems
Copyright 1999 Society of Automotive Engineers, Inc.

ABSTRACT
The technologies being employed by powder metal manufacturers have been developed to a level that allows for high performance power transfer in gearing. The merger of improved metallurgical and dimensional capabilities has resulted in the ability to produce gears with high strength and impact response and a degree of dimensional refinement for an AGMA class 10 or better.

tooth alignment variation. Other features are also defined by AGMA, but for clarity, this paper will not go into those details. AGMA ranks gears from 3 to 15 for quality. Conventional powder metal (P/M) gears will typically fall between a 6 and an 8 class. By requilifaction of the tooth geometry, a class of 10 or better can be achieved in a cost-effective manner. Very accurate and repeatable inspection devices are required to check to the higher quality levels. Coordinate measuring machines are not designed to inspect for profile and lead errors because they are not surface trace measurements. Specialized gear measurement systems are needed to allow for any kind of reliable inspection feedback data for process controls. The majority of applications that require such a refined geometry usually also have material requirements beyond the conventional properties that P/M can provide. By producing P/M gears to high density ranges (7.4 gm/ cc) compared to conventional densities (7.1 gm/cc), improvements in material responses can be achieved. This high density combined with a requalified tooth surface produces a superior P/M gear that is comparable in use to a wrought steel gear and at a lower cost.

INTRODUCTION
The ability to achieve the strength and impact response required for high performance applications as well as the dimensional requirements for tightly toleranced powder metal gears is achievable in low cost production environments. These two advances have resulted in cost effective alternatives to conventionally manufactured wrought steel gears. The ability to create a gear for high performance applications is a two-part advance. The metallurgical requirements are achieved by producing a high density green compact that results in better responses for strength and impact characteristics. The dimensional requirements are realized by the use of a post heat treatment secondary operation to requalify the gear geometry.

PART IMPROVEMENT VIA WARM COMPACTION AGMA CLASS GEARS

AGMA is the organization that provides a standard on information for manufacturing practices as well as gear measuring methods and practices (ref. 1). The purpose of AGMA is to provide a common basis for specifying quality, and for the procurement of unassembled gears. This paper references ANSI/AGMA 2000-A88. The AGMA standard is for geometry only. The standard does not specify strength or material requirements. The four main geometry requirements that make up the individual classes of gears are pitch line runout, pitch or index error, profile or involute error, and lead error or 1 Warm compaction has been used for several years in the P/M industry. It involves heating of the compaction tooling and often the powder as well. Tooling is generally heated using cartridge heaters inside the die walls. Powder heating can be accomplished with several techniques; Screw heater Microwave Induction Slot heater Fluid bed

There are several key properties that are enhanced as a result of warm compaction. Graphs 1 & 2 illustrate the type of gains that can be realized with warm compaction, such as increasing green density and green strength (ref. 2). Other properties that are enhanced through warm compaction include mechanical strength, elongation and impact strength.

DATA Green Parts For parts that were compacted conventionally (powder containing internal lube and not using warm compaction/external die lube) the average green density was 7.19 g/cc. By using warm compaction, external die lube and powder with no internal lube, the average green density was raised to 7.33 g/cc. The average concentricity of the warm compaction parts was 0.0035. Sintered Parts Warm compacted parts were sintered using a conventional belt cycle as well as a higher temperature vacuum cycle, as shown below. Conventional belt sinter, 15 minutes @ 2080F, DA atmosphere. Vacuum sinter, 1 hour @ 2250F, argon backfill The average final density of the conventionally-sintered parts was 7.36 g/cc. The vacuum sintered parts achieved a density of 7.46 g/cc.

Figure 1. Powder compressibility (ref. 2) Mechanical Properties The higher final densities achieved via warm compaction lead to substantial improvements in mechanical properties for P/M gears. Graph 3 shows a comparison of the yield strength values for both a conventional and warm-compacted P/M part.
Graph 3 - Yield Strength
75

Ancorsteel 85 HP + 2 w/o Ni + 0.4 w/o gr. + 0.6 w/o Lube Sintered @ 2300F for 30 minutes in 90 v/o N2, 10 v/o H2

0.2% Yield Str. (ksi)

70

Warm Compaction
65

60

Figure 2. Green compact strength (ref. 2) PROCEDURE For this study, the Delphi TOPS System (Transformation Of Powder System) was used for warm compaction. TOPS incorporates a proprietary method for powder heating as well as an integrated PLC package which controls all system components from one central PLC. In addition to heating powder and tooling, the TOPS System also incorporates external die wall lubrication. The P/M gears were pressed using the following parameters; 50 tsi compaction tonnage 250F die temperature 150F powder temperature 85HP (2 w/o Ni, 0.4 w/o gr.) powder with no internal lube External die wall lubricant 500 parts were compacted with green density and concentricity being measured on every 20th part.

Conventional
55

50 7 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5

Sintered Density (g/cc)

Figure 3. Yield Strength (ref. 2) The conventionally-sintered gears were subsequently sent through requalification and dimensional analysis.

DIMENSIONAL IMPROVEMENTS
For most wrought steel gears, a tremendous amount of material must be machined from the stock blank to produce the gear face geometry. With P/M, the near-net shape is already existing, and in some applications, is acceptable as is. P/M is simply not capable of producing a high AGMA class gear due to the amount of warpage experienced in pressing, sintering, and heat treatment operations. However, by using a requalification method, the near-net shape P/M gear can be quickly and cost effectively improved to allow for at least an AGMA class 10 gear, and in some cases class 12 or higher.

This is due to the nature of P/M material to allow for ductility and minimal work required to requalify a surface. There are two major ways of requalification, either cold working or chip removal. Both processes have benefits and drawbacks. The final product requirements can dictate the means of requalification. The development gear used is a ten-tooth pump gear. The overall length is 0.75 and the outside diameter is 2.11. For AGMA classes of 8, 10, and 12, the specified tolerances are shown below in ten-thousandths of an inch values.

A gear without any secondary operations will typically yield a pitch line runout of between .002 to .004. After requalification, the same gear can be reduced to less than .001. The two figures below demonstrate the improvements.

Figure 5. Typical pitch line runout without requalification

Figure 4. 10-tooth development gear AGMA Class: Runout Index Lead Profile 6 37.0 13.0 n/a 8 23.0 6.9 4.9 10 9.7 3.1 3.3 4.0 12 5.0 1.6 2.1 2.1 14 2.5 0.8 1.1 1.3 Figure 6. Requalified pitch line runout

n/a 9.0 ( .0001)

The gears produced without requalification achieved a rating of between 6 and 8. After requalification, ratings of 10 to 12 were achieved. Typically during requalification, all four of the key features tend to get better at the same time. They do not all improve exactly equally. However, improvements on one feature, usually have a beneficial result on other features. RUNOUT ERROR The runout error is basically the same as concentricity of the I.D. to the pitch diameter of the gear. Typically in P/M gear manufacturing, the gear will be located on the pitch diameter and the I.D. is brought to a finished size while being held concentrically to minimize runout. Without requalification, some amount of random variation due to warpage in tooth-to-tooth runout will exist. The importance of improving pitch line runout is important to reduce the stress loads due to uneven leverage during power transfer. When high amounts of runout are present, more severe stresses are encountered due to increased leverage ratios. 3

INDEX ERROR Index error is the displacement of any tooth from its theoretical position, relative to a datum tooth. Index error tends to correlate with runout error in P/M gears due to the nature of the process. The most important characteristic that index error controls is backlash. Backlash is the amount of play between two mating gears. This becomes especially critical when noise is a consideration and when gear sets can operate in both directions. The diagram below demonstrates how backlash exists between mating gears. Requalification can make improvements to index error on the same magnitude as runout error

Figure 7. Backlash in mating gears (ref. 3)

between the measured and the specified functional profile. The profile tolerance is also referred to as involute tolerance.

Figure 8. Index error in a non-requalified gear

Figure 10. Lead error on a non-requalified gear

Figure 9. Index error after requalification LEAD ERROR Lead error is the difference between the measured tooth alignment and the specified tooth alignment, measured normal to the specified tooth alignment and the tooth surface on the functional face width. Excessive lead error will typically result in noise and localized contact stresses. Because of the amount of warpage in the sintering operation, a certain amount of sagging is experienced by any P/M part. The sagging is caused by gravity pulling on the heated parts during the high temperature portion of the cycle. This results in a part that is conical in nature, and results in one end having a slightly larger pitch diameter than the other. If two like gears are used in a set, the majority of the contact stress will be on one end of each gear due to point loading. Requalification can reduce this negative sintering effect by a factor of four or greater. This feature's potential is greatly determined by the method of requalification. The final geometry improvement is maximized by material removal in a manor that does not allow for variation over the length of the gear. Figure 12. K Chart diagram (ref. 3) PROFILE TOLERANCE The profile tolerance is the permissible amount of variation as specified by a k chart envelope. The profile variation is the difference The P/M process is prone to having larger amounts of profile variation on the higher pitch angle gears. Due to

Figure 11. Lead error after requalification The largest need for a tightly controlled profile is in pump gears. If the mating gears of a pump have excessive profile tolerance, pump efficiency will suffer due to back leakage. By having a rolling contact point between meshing gear faces, a seal is created. When the profile variation is too large, contact is not held for the entire compression cycle.

changing masses from the inside to the outside of the gear form, different growth rates are seen. Requalification will benefit the higher pressure angle gears more so than lesser angle gears for profile error. Large amounts of profile tolerance will also result in increased contact stresses on the teeth. This usually will result in pitting, wear, and in worst case scenarios, gear failures. Requalification will provide a dramatic improvement in profile error. Reductions in error in the magnitudes of four or greater are typically realized.

REFERENCES
1. American National Standard Gear Classification and Inspection Handbook, 1988, American Gear Manufacturers Association 2. Hoeganaes Corporation Technical Update, 1998, Hoeganaes Corporation 3. S. Haye, Improved Pump Gear Geometry Through Secondary Gear Tooth Finishing, American Gear Manufacturers Association, 1998 4. E. Buckingham, Manual of Gear Design, American Gear Manufacturers Association, New York, N.Y. 1973 5. R. German, Powder Metallurgy Science, Princeton, NJ 1994,

DEFINITIONS, ACRONYMS, ABBREVIATIONS

Backlash : The shortest distance between non-driving tooth surface of adjacent teeth in mating gears. (ref. 4) Green Compact: An object produced by the compression of metal powders. Index Error: The displacement of any tooth from its theoretical position, relative to a datum tooth. Measurements are usually linear, near the middle of the functional tooth profile, and if made normal to the tooth surface, should be corrected to the transverse plane. Distinction is made as to the algebraic sign of this reading. Lead Error: Also known as tooth alignment variation. The difference between the measured tooth alignment and the specified tooth alignment measured normal to the specified tooth alignment and the tooth surface on the functional face width. Pitch Diameter: The diameter of a standard pitch circle and is defined by the number of teeth divided by the transverse diametral pitch. Pitch Line Runout: The total accumulated pitch variation. Profile Error: The permissible amount of profile variation in the functional profile: designated by a specified K chart envelope plus material at the tip which increases the amount of variation outside the functional profile is not acceptable. Sintering: A thermal process which increases the strength of a powder mass by bonding adjacent particles via diffusion or related atomic level events. Most of the properties of a powder compact are improved and frequently density increases with sintering. (ref. 5) Tooth Alignment: The permissible amount of lead tolerance, designated by the specified K chart envelope. Tolerance values in this standard are normal to the tooth surface.

Figure 13. Profile error on a non-requalified gear

Figure 14. Profile error after requalification

CONCLUSION
The successful merger of dual technologies has resulted in the next level of refinement for P/M gear capabilities. The combination of improved material properties as well as refined dimensional capabilities of the gear face geometry will allow for further applications of P/M gears. P/M gears can now be employed for cost saving purposes into the automotive and hydraulic industries to replace traditional wrought steel gears.