On the determination of the bending fatigue strength in and above the very high cycle fatigue regime of shot-peened gears

Demands on modern gearboxes are constantly increasing, for example to comply with lightweight design goals or new CO₂ thresholds. Normally, to increase performance requires making gearboxes and powertrains more robust. However, this increases the weight of a standard gearbox. The two trends therefore seem contradictory. To satisfy both of these goals, gears in gearboxes can be shot-peened to introduce high compressive residual stresses and improve their bending fatigue strength. To determine a gear’s tooth root bending fatigue strength, experiments are conducted up to a defined number of load cycles in the high cycle fatigue range. However, investigations of shot-peened gears have revealed tooth root fracture damage initiated at non-metallic inclusions in and above the very high cycle fatigue range. This means that a further reduction in bending load carrying capacity has to be expected at higher load cycles, something which is not covered under current standard testing conditions. The question is whether there is a significant decrease in the bending load carrying capacity and, also, if pulsating tests conducted at higher load cycles—or even tests on the FZG back-to-back test rig—are necessary to determine a proper endurance fatigue limit for shot-peened gears. This paper examines these questions.