A Review of the Mechanical and Physical Properties of Gear Manufactured by Powder Metallurgy Technique

Gear is the central component of driving mechanisms whose applications include factory automation, industrial robots, production machines, and material handling among others. Transmitting power and motion is nearly impossible in machines without the application of gear. The physical and mechanical properties of gear are to a great extent dependent on the manufacturing technique employed. Consequently, this paper aims to abstract from current literature and document the physical and mechanical properties of gear manufactured by powder metallurgy method which are fragmented in the literature to gain insight into the effectiveness of the powder metallurgy technique in gear manufacturing. It appears from the review that the application of powder metallurgy in gear manufacturing is extremely useful in complex gear structures with intricate parts at a higher precision when compared with other gear manufacturing techniques. Though the physical properties of gear produced by the powder metallurgy method surpass other methods, but it falls behind when the mechanical properties of gear produced by other methods are compared with the powder metallurgy technique. Hence, the future research direction may focus on how to improve the mechanical properties of gears produced by powder metallurgy by possibly using Nano-additives