A Survey of Additive Manufacturing Processes Applied on the Fabrication of Gears

Abstract

The geometric complexity of mechanical components of mechatronic systems is a challenge to apply Additive Manufacturing. The focus of this study is to evaluate the potential of AM processes for the fabrication of different types of multistage spur gears, bevel gears, worm gears, Harmonic drive gears, cycloidal drives and pumps. The precision of different AM technologies is compared. Material behavior is investigated on a gear test rig. The opportunities and limitations of processes using plastics for the fabrication of gears are discussed in this paper.