Determination of safety factor for agricultural gear reducer using simulation software

Agricultural gear reducers are used in a variety of agricultural machinery designs such as in agricultural tractors and transport cars, and even greenhouses. For greenhouses, a gear reducer is used to control windows on the side and the roof. Gear reducers for agricultural applications are designed using the empirical method because of the lack of a standard for experimentation. Simulation is necessary for the optimal design of an agricultural gear reducer. There are many advantages to this optimization such as low-cost maintenance, reduced size, and weight. In this study, bending and contact safety factor simulation for the gear reducer of a greenhouse was conducted by decreasing the face widths of helical gear shaft 2 and shaft 3 from 30.8 and 30 mm, respectively, at an interval of 4 mm. The bending and contact safety factors were calculated using AGMA standard. Simulation results showed that bending and contact safety factors decreased rapidly when the face width of the helical gear on shaft 2 was 30 mm and the face width of helical gear on shaft 3 decreased from 30.8 mm to 26.8 mm, suggesting that it would be safe to reduce the face width of the helical gear on shaft 3 to 26.8 mm. The reduction of the face width also reduced the weight of the agricultural gear. This study suggests that the agricultural gear reducer safety factor decreases as the face width decreases.