Gear Material and Lubrication for Advanced Gas Turbine Engines

The design of a gear simulation test rig is proposed to evaluate gear surface durability. The design focuses on surface initiate fatigue failure modes to allow evaluation of advanced corrosion resistant gear steels, surface technologies and advanced oils. Company assets of mature tribology test machine software (WinWAM) and custom made electronics are incorporated into the new machine design. In parallel with machine design, tribology performance mapping of advance gear steels are to be tested for wear, scuffing and surface fatigue performance. These tests are conducted with existing test machines (WAM4 and WAMhs). The results of these tests support new test rig design. They also support current R&D gear material development efforts. Results of performance mapping and surface fatigue testing are to be analyzed with respect to five key tribology parameters that control lubrication and failure modes. The performance boundaries and their specific parameters will be identified to develop an empirical modeling approach.