Wear Consideration in Gear Design for Space Applications

Abstract

A procedure is described that was developed for evaluating the wear in a set of gears in mesh under high load and low rotational speed. The method can be used for only low-speed gear application, with nearly negligible oil film thickness, and is especially useful in space stepping mechanism applications where determination of pointing error due to wear is important, such as in long life sensor antenna drives. A method is developed for total wear depth at the ends of the line of action using a very simple formula with the slide to roll ratio Vs/Vr. A method is also developed that uses the wear results to calculate the transmission error also known as pointing error of a gear mesh. Gears used in space applications are usually thought of as instrument gears with negligible load that must maintain position accuracy throughout their operational life or as deployment/actuator gears that may have inertial loads but a very low number of duty cycles.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jan 01, 1989
Accession Number
ADA205575

Entities

People

  • Dennis P. Townsend
  • Lee S. Akin

Organizations

  • National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Sensors
  • Space

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Accuracy
  • Actuators
  • Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion
  • Army Aviation
  • California
  • Computer Programs
  • Computers
  • Deployment
  • Diameters
  • Engineering
  • Errors
  • Gears
  • Geometry
  • Lubricants
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • New York
  • Standards

Readers

  • Space Exploration and Orbital Mechanics.
  • Tribology (the study of the boundary interaction between sliding surfaces, lubrication, wear and friction).

Technology Areas

  • Space
  • Space - Spacecraft Maneuvers