Performance Analysis of Polymer Additive Manufactured Gear Bearings

Abstract

Bearings in general, and in this case rotational bearings, are important elements in many machines. The main objective of this study was to find out the load-bearing capacity of 3D-printed gear bearings under various rotational speeds, test the bearings to failure and estimate their lifetime. An interesting note on the gear bearing is its uncommon geometric configuration, because the rolling elements are gears, which allows for a rolling-sliding motion between the constituting elements, minimizing the sliding effect. The material used is PLA (poly lactic acid), a common thermoplastic polyester, and the printing technology was FDM (fused deposition modeling). Considering the PLA’s temperature sensitivity, this was also monitored but had no influence on the failure of the bearing, as experiments show. The rotational speed range for the experiment is 250–1500 RPM (revolutions per minute) in increments of 250 RPM, and the loads are 18 N (Newton) and 45 N for a gear bearing with 51 mm diameter and 15 mm thickness. The results of this study can be used as a reference for application limitations or to design gear bearings using 3D printing methods.

Keywords

• polymer gear bearing
• bearing
• failure