Approach to spur gear design

A large number of parameters are involved in gear design. The design of gears also requires an iterative approach to optimize the design parameters that take care of kinematic aspects as well as strength aspects. Moreover, the choice of materials available for gears is not limited. Owing to the complex combinations of the above facts, manual design of gears is complicated and time consuming. A student designer in an academic institution or a beginner in industry will find it necessary to make a number of calculations of a similar type to arrive at a proper design for a gear. Hence, in this paper, attempts are made to prepare a computer program capable of designing a required type of gear under a specified set of working conditions. This paper is divided into three sections, namely: a query section, a design section and an output section. The paper describes the logic involved in the design of each of these modules, with most emphasis being given to the query module. This paper is oriented towards the training and education aspects of the gear design process.