Investigation of wear behaviour of gears under differentworking conditions manufactured by 3D printing and conventional methods

The main purpose of this research is to examine the wear behavior of thermoplastic gears produced by machining and additive manufacturing under different operating conditions. In this study, PA6 (Polyamide) plastic gear produced by machining method and Ultem 1010 gear produced by additive manufacturing method were used. These gears were tested for wear behavior at different cycles against the steel gear (1040 steel). These gears (Ultem 1010&PA6) were operated at 400 rpm, 800 rpm and 1200 rpm and completed 1 million revolutions. Temperature, noise, torque and surface roughness were measured during wear tests. The primary purpose of these tests is to reveal the wear differences of PA6 and Ultem 1010 gears. Ultem 1010 gear produced by additive manufacturing is an engineering thermoplastic with good mechanical properties and heat. When the temperature, wear, noise and torque results were examined, it was concluded that the PA6 gear performed better at low and medium speeds, while the Ultem 1010 gear performed better at high speeds.