Literature Review June 2026
- Jun 24
- 4 min read
PDF file with the most relevant top 25 publications June 2026 is provided for download by BGA members in each topic area below.
If you see something of interest, please use your favourite search engine to locate a copy. Many publications are open access and readily available to all but contact the BGA if you experience any problems.
Click the links below to download:
A few papers from the lists have highlighted for discussion by Rob Frazer from Design Unit.
Analysis of residual stress in helical gear teeth involute profile and helix in hobbing, shaving, carbonitriding, quenching and tempering processes. Carlos Alberto de Sousa Neves et al, from Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerias, Brazil.
As the range of manufacturing processes expands away from traditional gear manufacturing processes, the variation in surface and sub-surface residual stress state and thus fatigue strength becomes an increasing issue. This short paper provides a good example of how even classical gear manufacturing process such as hobbing and shaving parameters can result in different surface and sub-surface residual stress levels and variation of around 100MPa reported. This may mean the difference between a fatigue crack initiating or not.
The paper states the manufacturing speeds and feeds for hobbing and shaving and the carbonitriding conditions for the material. The gear is then sectioned, and surface and subsurface residual stress is measured and reported. Unfortunately, the gears could not be tested after cutting them up, so we don’t know how it would affect performance. The work is clearly presented with plenty of details which would allow it to be replicated.
So why pick this paper? BGA member Engrena ITA, with support from BGA and Design Unit and many others, are leading the preparation of a review paper on current state of art knowledge on gear residual stress, its effect on performance and how it is treated in ISO gear standards. We know grinding and shot peening can induce high beneficial compressive residual stresses, but these benefits are probably not acknowledged in the standards. Also, methods of specifying residual stress, its depth profile, and heterogeneity are not currently addressed. So, more work to be done here and a PhD student from Engrena ITA is currently visiting Design Unit at Newcastle University to research methods for defining residual stress heterogeneity.
Analysis of bending fatigue strength performance test for corrosion-resistant nitrided aviation gear steel cylindrical gears, Jian Sha et al, Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Sensor Technology and High Precision Weighing Instruments, University of Jinan, Jinan, China.
DOI 10.1088/1742-6596/3175/1/012023
This short paper presents the bending fatigue performance of new generation nitrided steels for aerospace applications. The paper refers to a Chinese standard GB/T 14230:2021 which defines the test methods for fatigue pulsator testing which were applied to gears and the statistical analysis methods used to analysis the results. This appears to align with the ISO 12107 standard used by Design Unit and elsewhere. The paper describes and illustrates the double tooth test method which they state results in lower standard deviation than a single tooth pulsator testing. They improve the standard deviation estimate by using the statistical data in a Monte-Carlo simulation and process the results to modify the standard deviation to create better estimates of 90% reliability rate. Fatigue limit estimates are presented and the small changes from the modified standard deviation are presented.
So why pick this paper? The paper highlights the importance of testing the latest generation of materials we all now use as a matter of routine. Material fatigue performance data in ISO 6336-5:2016 is mainly based on tests performed around the late 80’s and 90’s and is surly due for revision. Without a large international program of research work to update this data, there is little chance of this happening in the short term. The bast that may be achieved is to specifically test materials, heat treatments, and finish processes that you use for your own products.
Dynamic response analysis of helical gear systems considering periodic surface waviness deviation, Yu Wang et al, The State key laboratory of Mechanical Transmissions, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, China
DOI: 10.1016/j.triboint.2025.111512;
Classical cylindrical gear measurement involving single element profile and helix measurement has long been the only way to inspect high performance gears (if you did not perform single flank or TE measurement, and few of us do). However, many are finding that these measurement methods are not appropriate for controlling noise and vibration in high-speed gears operating with large torque range. Design Unit’s UK National Gear Metrology Lab and others have developed 3D gear surface or areal measurement analysis methods which enable better characterisation of the gear surfaces that are generating this unwanted noise.
This interesting paper describes a method of using gear surface measurements to characterise TSW (tooth surface waviness) of gear pairs, defining a 2D tooth separation method using 2D FFT(Fast Fourier Transform). The resulting surface deviations are used in a LTCA (loaded tooth contact analysis) to predict contact and lubrication details, dynamic mesh stiffness and resulting vibration spectra. The model strategy is described, and an example LTCA model prediction is compared with test data. While correlation between model and test shows some differences, the concept of using gear surface measurement data to eventually control or characterise manufacturing processes, is demonstrated.
Comments