VEXTEC Article Published in February Issue of Gear Solutions Magazine

BRENTWOOD, Tenn. - Feb. 17, 2014 - PRLog -- The February issue of Gear Solutions Magazine features an article  from VEXTEC entitled "Using Integrated Computational Material Science to Create Virtual Simulations of Gear Fatigue Life." The team of authors included Ganapathi Krishnan, Richard Holmes, Robert Tryon and Ed Pope of VEXTEC along with Richard Warns of Chrysler and Vikas Tomar of Purdue University. Former Purdue University Aeronautical Engineering Head Thomas Farris (Now Dean of Rutgers School of Engineering) and his graduate students also contributed.

Portions of the article describe work that was funded by the U.S. Naval Air Command.  The program paired VEXTEC's probabilistic modeling capability (called Virtual Life Management or VLM) with Purdue's CAPRI software, which models local surface stresses near contact points. Chrysler provided an extensive amount of test data of 9310 case hardened sun gears that were subjected to many demanding cycles on a dynamometer. Although designed to industry standards, about 4% of tested gears showed pitting damage.  VEXTEC's simulations also showed that 4% of gears would suffer pitting damage.

The Navy was interested in using the VLM approach to analyze helicopter gears, which were made of Pyrowear 53. Notched, three-point bend data from technical reports were used to calibrate the model. Analysis was then performed on baseline gears, and those which had been superfinished to a very smooth surface.  Virtual Life Management showed that superfinishing more than doubled gear life.

The goal of the program was to develop a model that could quickly evaluate changes in design, material or processing. This was accomplished with probabilistic models that simulated the actual failure process. The benefits of this approach include (1) Reduced physical testing, (2) Accelerated research and development plus reduced time to market, and (3) Reduced warranty costs due to increased accuracy of life calculations. This approach can be used on all kinds of components, not just gears. To date it has been used in the aerospace, automotive, defense, electronics and medical device industries.

The article may be viewed at http://www.gearsolutions.com/article/detail/6386/using-in....

About VEXTEC:

VEXTEC (http://vextec.com) was founded in 2000 and has developed its patented technology on virtual material modeling and predicting product durability. VEXTEC offers its Virtual Life Management (VLM) Services, to a variety of commercial and government customers. In addition, it also provides failure analysis and component re-design services through its VFA Engineering Group (http://failure-analysis-durability.com).