Our modeling capabilities help you to overcome the novel challenges of plastic gears.
A superior material is not all you get when you choose DSM Engineering Plastics. You’ll also benefit from our rigorous approach to analysis and design.
Our expertise is particularly valuable because high performance plastic gears, replacing metal, are still relatively new in the grand scheme of things. They behave significantly differently to steel gears with far higher levels of tooth bending and the potential for increased wear.
Helping you solve design challenges
Gears made from Stanyl® provide the best solution for the whole range of high-performance gears, whether you are seeking to reduce weight, emissions or noise, or improve safety. You may need our expert help to solve different design challenges from those faced in designing steel gears.
For example, the injection molding of plastic gears requires a very high level of expertise and specialization to meet the highest levels of quality and accuracy.
Our world class analytical tools and researchers are here to help solve your gear design and manufacture problems. They can provide the best advice on materials choice based on leading research.
Below you’ll find some more information on our tools as well as some sample animations. These show just how impressive our research capabilities really are.
Our design packages:
KissSoft (EU)
This is a semi-analytical tool to design gears and make gear calculations. It helps us calculate stresses, contact ratios, backlash, etc. We can then relate to the performance of the gears on a comparative basis. The effects of moisture and temperature can also be simulated. Amtec and UTS are similar, commercially-available packages.
Abaqus and MSC.Marc
These are pieces of multipurpose finite element software. Using the detailed contour of the gear, generated by KissSoft, we perform detailed stress analysis by FEA. This reveals true stress distribution and critical areas. Our assessment of the difference between metal and plastic gearing was done this way in this way.
Matlab (data processing/animation)
The data from FEA we process using Matlab. This processing gives the insight in mechanisms rather than colored pictures. The data on contact (stress), position, deformation are the basis for the animations.
This animation shows the FEA (MSC.MARC) animation of opening and closing of a window-lifter (worm-helical gear in cross section). It shows the stress distribution and plastic deformation in the gear at stall condition and the consequences for contact at opening and closing.
Links & Downloads
This animation is created based on data retrieved from FEA. It shows the meshing of a gears (blue and green teeth). The red dot represents the point of contact that moves along the flank of the tooth. The red line is the collection of contact points that is called the contact line - straight for involute gears.
Links & Downloads
This movie that accompanies the previous movie and shows the fraction of the load that is carried by the tooth pairs in contact. Data are also retrieved from FEA.
Links & Downloads
This shows the meshing of two further teeth styled by leaving out the non-contributing teeth. The red line is the contact line for involute steel gears. The green curve represents the contact line for plastics gears and how it deviates from the straight theoretical curve due to deflection of the teeth. Data again from FEA.
