Experimental investigation of the usability of metal gears produced by three-dimensional metal printing technology instead of produced by the traditional manufacturing method

The basic principle of additive manufacturing technology is that the model can be fabricated directly via computer-aided design system without needing product planning. This technology is quite different from the traditional methods and allows the production to be prevented wasting material. This study features 420 steel,316L steel, Ti6Al4V, AlSi10Mg gears produced using both additive and traditional manufacturing. They were subjected to identical test processes and compared to one another. The effect of rotational speed, torque, production technique, and post-production surface treatment was investigated. The researchers performed wear loss, efficiency analysis, oil analysis, damage analysis, optical, and scanning microscope surface analysis. It was revealed that the density and hardness of the gears produced by additive manufacturing were quite close to those produced by conventional methods, however the surface properties were different. Therefore, the types of damage that occur under the same operating conditions differ. Since the efficiency of all the gears tested is wither almost identical or higher than those produced by the conventional method, we concluded that the gears produced using additive manufacturing could replace gears produced by conventional means.