Condition monitoring of worm gear wear and wear particle analysis of industrial worm gear sets

This paper describes an experimental investigation under laboratory controlled test conditions on a pair of worm gears in which simulative wear modes were intentionally allowed to occur. Moisture corrosion wear, acid attacked corrosion wear, hard contaminant-related three body abrasive wear and normal adhesive wear as a base line for comparison purpose were investigated. A brass worm and steel worm gear pair test rig was used throughout the test series. The test samples of wear particles were collected and assessed through the observation of an optical micrograph in order to correlate and compare the wear particle characteristics to each specific simulative wear mode of the worn worm gear pairs. In addition, weight losses from all tested worm gear pairs were assessed with utilization of full factorial statistical experimental design in a laboratory controlled test condition. Several interesting issues accrued, these included main and interaction effect of independent wear variables on weight losses, typical worn surface pattern analysis and wear particle morphological analysis. It can be deduced from the experimental results statistically and physically that weight losses and wear particles from worm gear pair tribosystem characteristics exhibited a direct relationship with different simulative wear modes. In addition, it should also be possible to detect and diagnose grease lubricated worm gear wear utilization from wear particle analysis when condition monitoring grease lubricated worm gear sets.