Investigation of gear performance of MLNGPs as an additive on polyamide 6 spur gear

Abstract

Molded plastic gears have long provided an alternative to metal gears in lightly loaded drives. They transmit power quietly and often without lubrication in numerous applications, furthermore decrease the quantity of parts and oppose chemicals in numerous applications. Previously, plastic gears were restricted to to 0.25hp because of varieties in their properties and uncertainties about how they react to natural conditions such as moisture, temperature and chemical. Today, better molding controls combined with design practices that more accurately encompass environmental factors have boosted plastic gear drive capacity to 1.5hp. Using reinforcement this is standout amongst the most practices to enhance the gear performance.This study estimated the effects of multilayer graphene nanoplatelets (MLNGPs) as an additive on polyamide 6 (PA6) spur gear performance. These include strength, elastic modulus, thermal stability, dynamic mechanical analysis, moisture absorption, and wear characteristics.The nanocomposite gear was made by melt mixing method and injection moulded into thick flanges. The flanges were machined using CNC milling machine to produce spur gear. The wear experiments were performed at a running speed of 1400rpm and at torques of 13 and 16Nm with different concentration 0, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.5wt% MLNGPs using test rig. The result showed that 0.3% of MLGNPs is the optimum concentration. Young's modulus increased up to 40%, Vickers microhardness value increased up to 25%, storage modulus E' is increased up to 37% and glass transition temperature is increased up to 14%. On the other hand TGA result shows that the Tonest increased up to 7.5% and Td increased up to 2%, and wear decreased by 35% at 16Nm and 54% at 13Nm.