Estimation of Contact Fatigue Life of a Girth Gear Based on Pinwheel

Girth gears are applied in the mining, cement, and mineral processing industries and used in various types of horizontal mills, rotary dryers and kilns, and other heavy-gear ring applications. The large ring gears are normally fitted outside mills or kilns to provide the primary rotational drive. Recently, an external pinwheel gear set (e-PGS) was introduced to overcome manufacturing problems associated with girth gears. e-PGS is also suitable for low-speed, heavy-duty mechanical transmission and dusty and poor-lubrication conditions. This paper first presents a new profile modification of root relief for the e-PGS cam pinion. We then investigate load-stress factors to estimate the surface fatigue life by varying the shape design parameters. The results show that the contact fatigue life of an e-PGS can be extended significantly by increasing the profile shift coefficient. However, support bearing life of the pinwheel depends more on the contact force distribution than the profile shift coefficient.

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