The Problem

Vibrations in mechanical systems are often signals that there may be a problem within a component.  Check out this problem Knovel was able to help solve.

A mechanical engineer working on a transmission was hearing high vibration noises within the gearbox whenever the engine was running. Upon further inspection he found that the bearings were in need of replacement. He replaced the bearings, but after awhile the problem arose again.

Using Knovel
Since the bearings were not lasting as long as they should, he concluded that there was another problem with the gearbox. He turned to Knovel and entered the search term ‘gearbox failure’. (Click on the search box to see the results.)

In the title Root Cause Failure Analysis, the engineer found the answer in a table. The high vibration and short bearing life of the gears could be caused by a bent shaft, overload, or misalignment of gears. (Click to see the results in the image below.)

Solution
The engineer found that the shaft was beginning to yield from overload, and he redesigned the shaft using a stronger alloy.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 27th, 2009 at 10:32 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.