The influence of contour number on load carrying capacity of gears in aircraft gearbox demonstrator made by MEM

The paper presents an outcome of load carrying tests of gears in an aircraft gearbox demonstrator made of ABS B601polymer by means of INSPIRE D290 device. These tests checked an influence of an additional number of contours in gear models on durability of cooperating wheel pair during stand tests. The CAD models of the gears for stand tests were made in Autodesk Inventor program and were used as a base for making physical models. Therefore, Inventor files were exported to STL format. The following stage of data preparation was made in Model Wizard. The gears for stand tests were made by means of MEM method on INSPIRE D290 printer. Unlike most devices, this printer makes it possible to control not only the density of the filling in a model, but also to increase the number of contours. ABS polymer was chosen to make the gears. The choice was due to its good properties and because it is commonly used and also because it was possible to make the parts of the gearing at the Rzeszow University of Technology. Subsequently the gear pair was fixed on a test stand. The stand was designed in an open system. It was powered by a three-phase 0.75 kW electric motor. The control was provided by a single-phase inverter. Load on the stand was provided by an electromagnetic powder brake. This paper is a part of implementation of the research task number 4 „Development of a new, simpler and cheaper toothed gear in place of complicated and expensive planetary gears” of the project „Modern material technologies in aerospace industry.”