Practical Research on the Gear Test Rig

The gear test rig provides practical load capacity data and enables fast, project-specific testing – for more efficient, cost-effective, and reliable gears, including plastic and hybrid designs.

Weight and resource savings, reduced installation space, and lower costs are driving trends that challenge modern gear designs. Every design is only as reliable as its empirical basis, which is why the gear test rig provides a practical technology platform. With a continuously adjustable center distance, it can simulate continuous operation and flexible load cycles under various lubrication conditions, including oil or grease. This versatility allows engineers to determine application-specific load-bearing capacity values and carry out project-specific tests, quick validations, or isolated gear assessments – optionally as a service.

For plastic gears, which remain under-researched, the rig offers particular advantages. Lack of material data and multifactorial failure scenarios make development near performance limits difficult. The test rig enables research beyond standard VDI 2736 scenarios, producing data that reflect real application conditions. In collaboration with igus, new high-performance resins for 3D-printed gears can be tested under defined conditions, comparing them with injection-molded series components to approach equivalent precision and collect comparable load-bearing data.

The gear test rig accommodates straight or helical gear stages, including metal, plastic, and metal-plastic combinations. It supports dry running, grease lubrication, and oil lubrication, including immersion, injection, or oil-mist methods. Tests can run continuously or under application-specific load spectra, while measurements include torque, speed, efficiency, and lubricant temperature. Additional features such as automated damage detection with linked stop conditions, regulated operating temperatures for oil-lubricated tests, and a low-vibration, damped setup ensure reliable and reproducible results.