Carrier Gears

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Carrier Gears

The carrier gear project shown here exhibits our ability to fabricate turnkey gear assemblies and highlights our deep level of expertise in precision machining. This project was manufactured for an aerospace application and posed a number of challenges for our engineering and production team. The caging is an integral part of the design and had to accommodate additional gearing inside of the main gear structure. Apart from the tight tolerances of the associated gears, the carrier assembly design included hole locations for internal gear pinning. This feature required extreme precision as they had very tight relative dimensions; in addition, the contract included a number of variations of the design. Another of the challenging aspects of this project was the initial mapping of the process and the development of SPC (statistical process control) that would drive consistent output.

The customers drawing called out the use of Vascomax C300, also known as Maraging 300. This is a low-carbon, nickel-cobalt-molybdenum high-temperature high strength super alloy. Though machinability is similar to 304 stainless steel Vascomax C300, it is very expensive. Efficiently machining the components would require expert planning and advanced 5 axis machining systems with heavy reliance on CNC programming.

The raw material began in billet form, with machining commencing on our A Doosan Lynx LM 200 with a rotary table and our Puma 240 Dual Spindle CNC lathe that is equipped with live tooling for added efficiency. We also utilized a Moore #6 jig grinder and a Lorenze 152 CNC shaper. All parts were thoroughly deburred and meticulously cleaned in our Crest Ultrasonics OCJ parts cleaner, and were then subject to a MIL-H-6875 heat treating process.

The QA portion of the production plan included comprehensive visual and dimensional inspections, including the use of a Micro Vu Excel visual comparator and AGMA compliant run out, lean, and profile testing, ensuring 100% defect free products supplied with complete CoCs.

To learn more about this project, or any of the processes or techniques used to manufacture it, contact us directly.

Carrier Gear Details

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