Integral lightweight design of gears via laser beam melting

• Applicants: Professor Dr.-Ing. Gunther Reinhart; Professor Dr.-Ing. Karsten Stahl
• Subject Area: Engineering Design, Machine Elements, Product Development ; Production Automation and Assembly Technology
• Term: from 2016 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 314876601

In increasing resource efficiency of gear drives lightweight design is essential in order to reduce the masses that have to be accelerated as well as the torque of inertia and therefore minimize irreversible energy losses. At the same time, unbalances may be decreased leading to an increased gear life. This also holds a secondary lightweight potential in designing surrounding gear components according to a reduced load induced by the primary component. Lightweight concepts have to be a trade-off between material strength, efficiency as well as NVH (Noise, Vibration, and Harshness). Hence, a consideration on a system, component as well as material and manufacturing level is crucial.The framework of this project focusses on the possibilities of lightweight design by means of a combination of construction, material and manufacturing relying on additive manufacturing via LBM (Laser Beam Melting). LBM offers the integrated manufacturing of highly complex and integrated structures due to a layer wise buildup of the part. At the same time, high strength materials may be used. The flexibility of LBM is employed to implement lightweight structures into less stressed part segments. These structures comprise classical topologies like load-adapted struts or lattice structures, which have to be evaluated based on simulations and experiments with regard to their static and fatigue strength. As a sub research objective, lattice structures for the implementation of a conformal gas cooling are evaluated. This way porous part segments are created that can be used as an evaporation cooling zone for special thermal conditions. In summary, the overall research objective is a comprehensive design guideline specifically for LBM for integrated lightweight gear wheels.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants