Evaluation of Fatigue Life of Automotive Bevel Gear

This paper presented the results for experimental investigations and numerical analysis performed with the aim of studying on fatigue life of hobbed and cold forged bevel gears used in automobiles. To evaluate the bending fatigue strength improvement by cold forging process, fatigue test and analysis were performed. For the monotonic fatigue loading, bending fatigue test and analysis were carried out. To simulate the real driving condition, random fatigue loading was defined here, and the random fatigue analysis was also performed. It was concluded that fatigue life and crack initiation sites of automotive bevel gear were well agreed with the test results. Fatigue lives for hobbed and cold forged bevel gear from experimental and analytical investigation were also presented and compared.