International Journal of Fatigue 26 (2004) 785789

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijfatigue

Technical Note

Three point load application in single tooth bending fatigue test

for evaluation of gear blank manufacturing methods
E. Akata
, M.T. Altnbalk, Y. C
an
Faculty of Engineering and Architecture, Trakya University, 22030 Edirne, Turkey
Received 28 May 2003; received in revised form 31 October 2003; accepted 24 November 2003

Abstract
This study deals with the applicability of a single tooth bending fatigue test in the evaluation of gear blank manufacturing
methods using three point bending loading. The single tooth bending test is an eective and rapid way of determination of the
performances of gears instead of expensive and time-consuming life tests. Bending tests were applied to two groups of gears cut
by hobbing and gear shaving from gear blanks. The rst group of gear blanks was obtained by CNC-lathe machining from round
bars and the second group of blanks was produced by closed-die upsetting. Both of the gear groups were additionally tested after
case hardening by carburizing. It was shown that the three point bending test can easily be adapted and applied as an eective
and rapid way of comparing the performances of such gears.
# 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Fatigue; Three point bending; Gear blank

1. Introduction
Various parameters have to be considered in determining the manufacturing method for an individual
machine element because the mechanical properties of
the product, surface quality, tolerances, production
rate and costs are directly related to manufacturing
method. The evaluation of the mechanical properties of
the product is an important consideration when selecting manufacturing methods. Comparison of some
mechanical properties of the product that can be
obtained by dierent manufacturing methods plays an
important role in the decision on the manufacturing
process employed. Among the manufacturing methods,
forming processes are characterized by better mechanical properties, high production rates and good surface
quality in both mass and batch production [1]. This
study presents some results of a part of an industrial
research and development project carried out in an
eminent automotive company in Turkey. One of the


Corresponding author. Tel.: +90-284-2134354; fax: +90-2842126067.
E-mail address: erolakata@superonline.com (E. Akata).

0142-1123/$ - see front matter # 2003 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijfatigue.2003.11.003

main products of the company is high pressure

hydraulic external gear pumps. In the company, gear
blanks of the pumps are produced by machining from
round bars. In the project, gear blanks were rst
closed-die hot upset to reduce material loss, and then
the teeth of gears were cut by hobbing instead of producing the complete gear by a full machining operation
[2].
As is known, the fatigue strength of teeth of a gear is
an important design consideration and aected by service conditions and manufacturing methods as well [3
5]. In the mentioned company, a standard life test is
applied to evaluate the life of the pump components
after assembling all the components of gear pumps. It
is examined whether a failure occurred on gears and
other components of the pump after the standard life
test. This standard life test takes a long time, even
some weeks, and the overall cost increases. Therefore,
this test is obviously not an eective way of evaluation
of the fatigue behavior of gears produced by various
manufacturing methods for this project.
On the other hand, the single tooth bending test is
one of the rapid testing methods to obtain the fatigue
behavior of a gear tooth [6]. The main purpose of

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E. Akata et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 26 (2004) 785789

the bending test for a single tooth is to determine the

fatigue strength of a tooth when it is loaded in one
direction. The test is very useful to determine the eect
of some parameters including material properties,
manufacturing methods, heat treatments and nishing
operations on the strength of the products. Moreover,
it is dicult to replicate the grain orientation and/or
material ow in gear teeth obtained by dierent manufacturing methods using a standard test specimen, so a
better method uses a bending test on a single tooth [6].
As is known, if any gear tooth is cut with sucient
accuracy, the tip-load condition is not the worst case,
due to the fact that another pair of teeth will be in contact when this condition occurs. In other words, if the
teeth are formed with the highest precision and with a
high quality surface nish, then it is quite likely that
the two pairs of meshing teeth will share the load during the period that both pairs are in contact. Therefore,
the greatest bending stress is assumed to occur when
the load is at a special point instead at the tip of the
tooth. This point is called the highest point of single
tooth contact (HPSTC) [79]. The location of the
HPSTC is determined from basic gear geometry,
shown in Fig. 1. Contact rst starts at point A, where
the root of the driver meshes with the tip of the drive
gear, and terminates at point B. The distance AD can
be calculated as:
q q
AD R2aG  R2bG R2aP  R2bP  Rpp
RpG sin/
1
Point C is the HPSTC. In the intervals AB and CD,
double teeth pairs carry the load, while in the interval
BC a single tooth pair carries the load. The lengths AC
and BD are equal to the base pitch. By drawing a layout of a gear tooth, its location is determined from

Fig. 1. Determination of HPSTC [6].

Fig. 1 as follows:
q q
AO R2aG  R2bG  R2pG  R2bG

OC AC  AO pmcos/  AO

and using the triangle O1CO, Rc can be determined as:

q
Rc R2pp OC2  2Rpp OCcos/ 90
4
The x and y coordinates of the forcing point are:
x Rc sina and y Rc cosa
The y coordinate of the loading point was calculated
as 17.4 mm using the geometrical dimensions of the
tested gears.
Regarding the above explanations, comparison of
the bending fatigue behavior of the teeth of the gears,
loading them from their HPTSC, was chosen as a rapid
way of evaluation of the performance of gear teeth
produced by dierent manufacturing methods.
In this study, as explained above, the bending fatigue
behaviors of teeth of gears that are produced by full
machining and gears that are produced by hobbing
from upset gear blanks have been investigated experimentally and results are compared with each other.

2. Experimental procedure
2.1. Brief explanation and simplied bending stress
estimation
As has already been explained in the previous section, comparison of performances of teeth of gear
pumps was achieved using a three point bending test in
a repeated manner.
The three point bending test xture is shown in
Fig. 2(a). The upper and lower parts of the test xture
were machined from a H13 hot work tool steel, then
hardened and tempered to a hardness level of 54-RC
Needle elements having 2 mm diameter were attached
to V-shaped grooves that were machined on the upper
part of the xture. The gear to be tested, shown schematically in Fig. 2(b), was placed on a lower test xture and bending loads were applied via its upper part
by means of needle elements tted on the xture. The
distance between the loading centers of the needle elements was supposed to be the diameter of HPSTC. In
calculation of HPSTC, the geometrical dimensions of the
tested gears are obtained from related CAD drawings.
Details of the loading state are shown in Fig. 2(c).
Although there are two loaded teeth and three loading
points in this gure, this case can be considered a single tooth test, because each tooth is supposed to be a
cantilever beam that is loaded by bending load F/2 on
its HPTSC point.

E. Akata et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 26 (2004) 785789

Fig. 2.

(a) Three point bending test xture; (b) schematic representation of gear pump gear; (c) load application of three point bending test.

In each fatigue test, the alternating compression load

was varied between a constant value of 0.25 kN and a
predetermined value. The predetermined compression
load values, F, were set to dierent levels between 9.75
and 20.7 kN for each test.
Minimum values of the uctuated loads were kept
constant in order to prevent relative movement between
the tested gear and the test xture. Maximum repeated
tensile stresses are produced at points B and C, where
width sections are minimum at the root region because
of the undercut of the teeth due to the number of teeth
of gear pumps (Fig. 2). In connection with the load
application form, uctuating bending moments can be
presented by Eq. (5):
MB

787

F DHPSTC  DROOT
2
2

where DROOT is 23 mm and DHPSTC is 34.8 mm.

Maximum bending tensile stresses, within rectangular cross-sections having points B and/or C, were
determined according to simple bending stress equations using a moment of inertia equal to ((tw3)/12),
shown in Fig. 2(c). Although there are small dimensional dierences among the tested gears due to
machining tolerances, the nominal values of t and w
are 11 and 6.4 mm, respectively.
2.2. Stress analysis of gear teeth by FEM
The stress distribution within the gear teeth was also
examined using the nite element method (FEM). Solid
models of tested gears and loading condition were

inserted in and meshed by ANSYS 7.0 strength analysis software. Modeled gears were supposed to be xed
from their shafts, and two loads, (F/2), which are each
equal to 500 N, were applied by means of needle elements. Meshed models and equivalent and shear stress
distributions are given in Fig. 3. Stress intervals in the
gures were presented with dierent colors, which are
approximately equal to 10 MPa for Fig. 3(b) and 5
MPa for Fig. 3(c) starting from zero. Maximum
equivalent stress and shear stress at the root of the loaded tooth were given as 36 and 21 MPa, respectively,
by the software. On the other hand, maximum bending
stress at the root of the tooth loaded with 500 N was
calculated as 39 MPa using simple bending stress formulae. The dierence between the calculated values
and those obtained by FEM is approximately 8%.

3. Experimental results
Experimental study was carried out on gears made
from a special carburizing steel. Bending tests were carried out on a 50 kN capacity INSTRON 8501 material
testing machine having a frequency range of 0.5100 Hz
with adaptation of the test xture explained above at a
frequency of 30 Hz.
Experiments were conducted on two groups of gears
made from the same material. The rst group of gears
was completely manufactured by machining. They were
rst machined from round bars into gear blanks by a
CNC lathe, cut into gears by hobbing and nally gear
shaved.

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E. Akata et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 26 (2004) 785789

was purchased in normalized condition. Tensile and

yield strengths of the steel in hardened and tempered
conditions were obtained by standard tensile test. The
chemical composition, yield and tensile strength values
are given in Table 1. Fatigue tests were performed on
the gears of both groups until the complete fracture of
one of the gear teeth at point B or C. Fatigue tests
were completed when fracture occurred and the number of load cycles was recorded. All fatigue test procedures were also repeated for both groups of gears in
case hardened condition. Gears to be hardened were
v
gas carburized at 930 C for 8 h, then oil quenched and
v
nally tempered for 2 h at 200 C. Although fatigue
test results are commonly given as alternating stress
components for constant mean stress with respect to
numbers of cycles, giving the results as maximum stress
versus cycles to failure at constant minimum stress is
also a common practice [10]. In conjunction with the
latter approach, fatigue test results that show the variations of numbers of load cycles on fracture with rmax
are given in the diagram of Fig. 4. Variations of calculated bending maximum stresses with the number of
cycles to fracture are presented, in accordance with the
literature, as straight lines for various manufacturing
methods and/or conditions. The straight line for fully
machined gears can be regarded adequately representative of behavior against fatigue due to the number of
test results. Similar variations for other manufacturing
method and heat treatment conditions are also represented with straight lines in the diagram. They are supposed to be regarded representative of the trends for
comparison of the manufacturing methods.

4. Discussion and conclusions

Fig. 3. Results of FEM analysis of tested gears. (a) Meshing of the

model; (b) equivalent stress distribution according to Von Mises criteria; (c) shear stress distribution.

Machined round bars were purchased in the hardened and tempered condition. The second group of
gears was rst closed-die hot upset into gear blanks,
nish machined before hobbing, cut into gears by hobbing and nally gear shaved. The second group steel

In this study, the applicability of three point loading

in single tooth bending test for rapid determination of
the performance of gears is examined. Load application points were determined according to the highest point in single tooth contact-HPSTC equations
using the dimensions of tested gears identied in their
CAD drawings. As expected, considerable strength
increase was observed for gears machined from upset
blanks due to the strengthening eect of plastic forming. Although the original tensile strengths of upset
parts were half of those of fully machined ones, fatigue
strengths were obtained at a higher level.
As expected, the fatigue strength of case hardened
gears was higher than that of fully machined gears or
those machined from upset blanks, due to the strengthening eect of the heat treatment. There is also no considerable dierence in fatigue strength between gear
teeth of fully machined gears and those machined from
forged blanks in the case hardened condition. Since
fatigue failure is dependent on the condition of the

E. Akata et al. / International Journal of Fatigue 26 (2004) 785789

789

Table 1
Standard chemical composition and tensile strength values of the gear material
C (%)

Si (%)

Mn (%)

Cr (%)

Mo (%)

Ni (%)

0.17
0.23
X Y Z< 0:8

0.15
0.33

1.20
1.50

Yield stress (MPa)

Tensile strength (MPa)

Hardened and tempered

1080

Normalized
443

Fig. 4.

Hardened and tempered

1200

Normalized
550

Fatigue test results obtained from three point bending load application.

surface, anything that changes the fatigue strength of

the surface material will greatly alter the fatigue
properties [10]. Holding the gears in a carbonizing
atmosphere for a long time at high temperatures leads
to similar chemical composition in the surface material
for both groups of gears. Since the conditions of the
surfaces are almost similar after the case hardening
stage, the same fatigue performances are found for
both groups. The test results obtained are adequate for
the comparison of dierent manufacturing methods in
gear production. Gear performances against fatigue
loading can be evaluated more rapidly by the three
point bending test than by the complicated, expensive
and time-consuming pump life tests.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Turkish gear pump producer Hema Industry for nancial and technical support in the manufacturing and heat treatment of the
specimen gears, and Trakya University for technical
support in fatigue testing.

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