High-Performance Plastic Gears

Plastic gears have been used for decades in a wide variety of applications such as consumer articles or electromechanical actuators in the automotive sector. Plastic specific material properties such as low-density and high-damping characteristics and the possibility of mass production through injection molding are advantageous and contribute to the increasing application of plastic gears. However, the comparatively large differences in material properties compared to steel result in plastic gears mostly being used in low-power drives. In particular, the high-temperature dependency of the material properties and lower strength numbers often represent a challenge for the application of plastic gears.