The UTC Graduate School is pleased to announce that Benjamin Swords will present Master's research titled, Design of Nylon-Carbon Fiber Composite Gears on 06/12/2024 at 10:00 AM in ECS404. Everyone is invited to attend. 

Engineering

Chair: Dr. Trevor Elliott

Co-Chair: 

Abstract:

Advances in manufacturing and material science have changed fundamental limitations of designs and have allowed designers to redesign components to improve performance characteristics. This work applies traditional gearing standards from the American Gear Manufacturers Association (AGMA) to a nylon-carbon composite material for the purpose of additive manufacturing (AM). Calculations for load carrying capacity and operating temperature are used to optimize a design that was previously constrained by conventional manufacturing technology. A model of the optimized design is presented, and simulations applied using Finite Element Analysis (FEA) to determine load characteristics between traditionally manufactured gear profiles and the optimized design. The comparison between the traditional gear design and the optimized for composite additively manufactured design will serve as benchmarking of the new materials and manufacturing process, providing a path for continued research on gear design using emerging materials and processes.