10FTM05

AGMA Technical Paper

Comparison of the
AGMA and FEA
Calculations of Gears
and Gearbox
Components Applied in
the Environment of
Small Gear Company
By Dr. V. Kirov, Bucyrus
International, Inc.
Comparison of the AGMA and FEA Calculations of Gears and
Gearbox Components Applied in the Environment of Small
Gear Company

Dr. Vanyo Kirov, Bucyrus International, Inc.

[The statements and opinions contained herein are those of the author and should not be construed as an
official action or opinion of the American Gear Manufacturers Association.]

Abstract
The current AGMA standards provide a lot of information about the calculations of loose gears and gearbox
components – shafts, splines, keys, etc. These recommendations are based mostly on the “traditional”
methods of mechanical engineering, found in many classical textbooks and research papers. Their accuracy
and reliability have been proven in many years of gearbox design and field tests. They are clear, concise, in
most cases easy to program and apply even by a small gear company with limited resources.
However new methods for calculations of mechanical engineering components like FEA (finite element
analysis) are becoming wide spread. Once these techniques were used only by big companies because of
their complexity and price but with the development of the computer technology they become more and more
accessible to small gear companies which are the majority of participants in the market.
In nowadays gear business even a small gear company is usually in possession of a modern CAD system
which always includes a basic or advanced FEA package. Such CAD systems are most often run by one gear
engineer who makes 3D models, engineering calculations and production drawings. The level of the FEA
packages is such that it allows the gear engineer to be able to do components calculations without deep
knowledge in the FEA itself.
So the question about the effectiveness of the traditional AGMA calculations and the new FEA methods
becomes of vital importance particularly for small firms.
The presented paper compares AGMA with FEA strength and deflection calculations of spur gears and
gearbox components and draws conclusion and recommendations about their effectiveness in the
environment of a small gear company.

Copyright  2010

American Gear Manufacturers Association

500 Montgomery Street, Suite 350
Alexandria, Virginia, 22314

October 2010

ISBN: 978--1--55589--980--6
 Comparison of the AGMA and FEA Calculations of Gears and Gearbox
Components Applied in the Environment of Small Gear Company
Dr. Vanyo Kirov, Bucyrus International, Inc.
Introduction
AGMA calculations
The current AGMA standards [1] provide a lot of
information about the calculations of loose gears
and gearbox components – shafts, splines, keys,
etc. These recommendations are based mostly on
the “traditional” methods of mechanical engineer-
ing, found in many classical textbooks and research
papers. Their accuracy and reliability have been
proven during many years of gearbox design and
field tests. They are clear, concise, in most cases
easy to program and apply even by a small gear
company with limited resources. Though the
AGMA standards and information sheets are
excellent source of gear information they are not
recommended for beginners.
FEA calculations
A new method – Finite Element Analysis (FEA) – is
used nowadays extensively for calculations of the
strength and deflections of mechanical engineering
components. Before it was used only by big
companies because of its complexity and price, but
with the development of the computer technology it
becomes more and more accessible to small gear
companies, which are majority of participants on the
market. Almost all FEA manuals require simplifica-
tion of the parts. This approach is very dangerous
for gearbox components where the part features
are very close to each other and every one of them
usually influences the stress concentration of the
other and the whole part. The proper modeling of
the gearbox parts and assemblies requires mesh
refinement which needs a lot of computing
resources not always available to the small firm. It is
common during the calculations to get a message
that there is not enough calculation power,
especially if convergence process is used. Apart
from the mesh refinement the finite elements them-
selves require special attention, which usually is
beyond the scope of the gear engineer knowledge.
The FEA has its own inherent errors for each of its
3
stages – modeling, discretization and solution [4],
that’s why it is recommended to be only one of the
methods for engineering design.
The small gear company
In nowadays gear business even a small gear
company is usually in possession of a modern CAD
system which always includes a basic or advanced
FEA package. Such CAD systems are most often
run by one gear engineer who makes 3D models,
engineering calculations and production drawings.
The level of the FEA packages is such that it allows
the gear engineer to be able to do components
calculations without deep knowledge in the FEA
itself.
So the question about the effectiveness of the
traditional AGMA calculations and the new FEA
methods becomes of vital importance particularly
for small firms.
This paper presents comparison of calculations of
gears and gearbox components carried out accord-
ing to AGMA standards and information sheets, and
according to FEA package, which is part of com-
mercially available CAD system [3].
Comparison of AGMA and FEA
calculations
Table 1 shows the direct comparison of the
capabilities of AGMA standards and information
sheets and FEA to calculate gears and gearbox
components. It also suggests that FEA is superior
to AGMA and should be used extensively. However
it is necessary to remember that FEA has its
inherent errors as mentioned above and the AGMA
calculations are empirical and proven by field
experiments. It is sometimes very difficult to make
direct comparison between the two methods.
AGMA calculations in most cases are fatigue
calculations based on proven fatigue data. Only
high level FEA software is capable of doing fatigue
calculations. This paper considers calculations
which can be compared by both approaches – gear
teeth, shafts and splines. Keys and bolts
calculations are not considered due to space AGMA methods and FEA, a simple gearbox is
limitation. designed (Fig. 1) with the following parameters:
one stage spur gears, power – 30 KW, pinion speed
Table 1. Comparison of AGMA and FEA – 1200 rpm, pinion number of teeth – 22, gear num-
capabilities ber of teeth – 55, module – 4mm, face width –
Gearbox Calculation 30 mm, no profile shift, carburized and ground
AGMA FEA
element type gears.
pitting Yes Yes
Gear teeth bending Yes Yes
deflection Limited Yes Gear calculations
stress Yes Yes
Shaft
deflection Yes Yes The AGMA strength calculations of gear teeth are
stress Yes Yes given in ANSI/AGMA 2001-D04. This standard
Splines
deflection No Yes determines the pitting and bending strength of the
stress Yes Yes gear teeth based on empirical formulas. The
Keys
deflection No Yes geometry factors used in this standard are determ-
stress Yes Yes ined based in the information sheet AGMA
Bolts 908-B89. The proper application of this standard
deflection No Yes
stress No Yes requires deep knowledge of the gear misalignment
Housing and dynamics. The bending of the gear teeth and
deflection No Yes
stress No Yes the load distribution factor are discussed in AGMA
Assembly 927-A01 and partly in ANSI/AGMA 6001--E08.
deflection No Yes
There are also some other standards which give in-
formation about the gear teeth strength – ANSI/
Gearbox example AGMA 6002-B93, ANSI/AGMA 6032-A94 and AN-
To compare the calculation done by the traditional SI/AGMA/AWEA 6006-A03.

Figure 1. Gearbox model

4
The AGMA gear rating suite [2] is based on ANSI/ see that those high stresses are only in certain small
AGMA 2001-D04. It is used to rate the gearbox. areas, close to the edges of the band of contact.
The results for the pinion are given in Table 2. Definitely this is due to errors in the model, which
repair usually is beyond the knowledge of the gear
The gear geometry must be modeled properly in or- engineer. But looking at the surrounding colors we
der to use FEA for the strength calculations and de- see that the stresses are close to those predicted by
flections of the gear teeth. In the popular gear liter- the AGMA software (Table 2).
ature there are examples showing how to do that
[5]. The most difficult part is the modeling of the
contact area of the two gears. The easiest way is to
calculate the contact band [5] and present it as
planes on the gear teeth, however this calculation is
not given in the AGMA standards. Then these
planes can be easily mated in the CAD software and
the calculations carried out. Figure 2 shows band of
contact equal to 0.3mm.

The FEA strength calculations are shown on

Figure 3 – the meshing, the loading, the contact
area and the stress numbers. It seems that the
contact stresses are very high. However if we look Figure 2. Band of contact applied at the
carefully at the stress distribution on Figure 4, we highest point of single tooth contact

Table 2. Comparison of AGMA and FEA calculations

Gearbox element Calculation type AGMA FEA
Gear teeth Pitting, pinion 815 MPa About 800 MPa
Bending, pinion 137 MPa About 116 MPa
Shaft Stress 134 MPa About 100 MPa
Deflection (bending) 8 mkm 10 mkm
Deflection (torsion) 0.0026 rad 0.0011 rad
Splines Stress (shear) 27 MPa About 23 MPa

Figure 3. FEA model of the gears

5
 AGMA does not have a procedure for determining
the gear deflections except for the tooth deflection
in the gap analysis of AGMA 927-D07.
Having in mind that AGMA predictions allow for
about 25% scatter of the results we can conclude
that both methods give close results.
Figure 5 shows bending stresses of the pinion
which are very close to the AGMA numbers
(Table 2).

Figure 4. FEA contact stress of the pinion
Shaft calculations
The shaft calculations are given in ANSI/AGMA
6001-D97. They are very detailed strength and
deflection calculations. However the deflection
calculations are simplified either for bending or tor-
sion only. In AGMA 927-A01 there are detailed de-
flection calculations for shafts – again separated for
torsion and bending, however this time they are
summed in the approach for the gap analysis. This
gap analysis includes also the tooth modification,
the lead variation and the shaft misalignment which
is beyond the scope for FEA modeling in this paper.

Figure 5. FEA bending strength of the pinion

6
A calculation spreadsheet based on ANSI/AGMA
6001-D97 shows the bending deflections of the in-
put shaft (Figure 6). The angle of twist calculated
per this standard is 0.0026 rad. Figure 7 and
Figure 8 show the deflections in the same location
calculated by FEA.
The stresses in the shaft in a given critical sections
calculated by ANSI/AGMA 6001-D97 are given in
Table 2. Figure 9 shows the stresses in the same
section calculated by FEA and also presented in
Table 2.
Splines
AGMA does not have a separate standard for
splines. The calculations of the splines are given in
ANSI/AGMA 6123-B06. The splines are rated for
shear, fretting and wear and ring bursting. The
shear calculations consider the core hardness of
the splines, while the fretting and wear – the surface
hardness. The shear calculations assume that the
torque is transmitted only through half the splines.
For comparison purposes it is assumed that all the
teeth are carrying the load. The results are
presented in Figure 10 and Table 2.

Figure 6. AGMA bending and torsion deflections of the input shaft

Figure 7. FEA torsion deflection of the input shaft

7
 Figure 8. FEA bending deflection of the input shaft

Figure 9. Input shaft stress in critical section

Conclusions strength of the gears. However the bending cal-

S It is not always easy to make direct comparison
between AGMA and FEA calculations due to the
different nature of both methods.
S The AGMA standards and information sheets
S Whenever direct comparison is possible AGMA
and FEA methods give similar results.
S The AGMA and FEA calculations give
comparable results for the contact and bending
culations should be considered more reliable
due to the controversial approach of modeling
the contact between the gear teeth.
should be preferred by the gear engineer for the
calculations of the gears and gearbox compon-
ents because he/she has deeper knowledge in
them then in FEA.

8
 Figure 10. Spline shear stress
S FEA calculations should be preferred for
deflection calculations rather than for strength,
because deflections are easier to calculate and
besides AGMA has limited number of such
methods.
S FEA calculations should be used where AGMA
does not have similar methods.
S Whenever necessary FEA consultant should be
involved and calculations should be done with
higher level of FEA software.
S Gear engineers should be encouraged strongly
to increase their competence in FEA in order to
quickly size gearbox parts for which AGMA cal-
culations are not applicable and to improved
communication with FEA engineers.
Reference
1. AGMA Standards Collection 2009.
2. AGMA Gear Rating Suite, Version 2.2.1, Amer-
ican Gear Manufacturers Association.
3. Cosmos Works Designer 2008 Training Manu-
al, Copyright 1995-2007, Dassault Systems,
S.A.
4. Kurowski, Paul, Finite Element Analysis for
Design Engineers, SAE International, War-
rendale, Pa, 2004.
5. Townsend, Dennis, Dudley’s Gear Handbook,
McGraw-Hill, 2 Sub Edition, September 1991.