School of Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Performance Analysis of Acetal Nano-Silica Composite Spur Gear
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Date
2016-11
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
It is well known that gears are one of the most important and common machine components, and
un alternative, light weight and durable, material for gears has been the focus of many researchers,
especially in the last two decades. This thesis work will focus on assessing the capability of
polymer composite spur gear, acetal, which is the most commonly used polymer for gear
manufacturing due to its manufacturability, low cost, and good wear resistance, reinforced with
nano-silica (spherical), one of the most easily available and widely used nano particle to reinforce
thermoplastics, for medium power transmission(890W). Reinforcing polymers with nano-particles
is found to be one of the most effective methods to improve the overall mechanical and thermal
property of polymers. The composite gear performance is analyzed for wear and thermal resistance
as well as fatigue life. The analysis is conducted with the aid of FEM software Abaqus/CAE 6.14
and the homogenized material property of the composite is predicted using the multi scale
homogenization technique which was found to be reliable for calculating the homogenized
mechanical property of polymer nano-composites. The results obtained after this work show that
the addition of 4.5 volume percentage of nano-silica (SiO2) in to the polymer matrix (acetal) was
found to increase the wear resistance by 300%, the thermal conductivity by 47% and the number
of cycles to fatigue failure was found to be ten times more than pure acetal gear, where the change
or increase in mass of the gear is only 15.86 grams.
Key words: nano-composite, spur gear, wear resistance, thermal resistance, fatigue life, FEM
analysis
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Keywords
nano-composite; spur gear; wear resistance;; thermal resistance;fatigue life; FEM analysis