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Gear Drive Fundamentals, Maintenance &

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GEAR FUNDAMENTALS

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Gear Definition
 “Gear" in the present context means a toothed
wheel of any kind.
 “The essential purpose of gear tooth profile is to
transmit rotary motion from one shaft to another.
 Since at least two gears are needed to provide a
drive, it is convenient when dealing with a pair of
gears to refer to the individual members as the
pinion and wheel respectively, the pinion having
the smaller number of teeth..”

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History of Gears
 Initially gears were probably made from wood which
served the purpose of transmitting motion by
engagement of teeth.
 The gears were then made by casting but later on

ways of machining and finishing the gears were

developed.
 Now surface hardened gears are used with gear

finishing like grinding, shaving, honing, lapping etc.

 Tooth modification techniques were developed to

achieve uniform load and power transmission.

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Law of Conjugate Action

“To transmit uniform rotary motion from

one shaft to another by means of gear
teeth
 The normal to the profile of these teeth

at all points of contact must pass

through a fixed point on common centre
line of two shafts. ”

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Path of Contact

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Conjugate Action

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Types of Gear Tooth Forms

 Cycloidal Tooth Form

 Involute Tooth Form

 CIRC- ARC Form

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Novikov Gears

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Cycloidal Tooth Form
 First general forms to be used for gear teeth profile
was cycloidal tooth form.
 Theoretically in its kinematics, it has many points
of advantage. The practical difficulties of producing
it accurately however are largely responsible for its
retirement from the field of commercial gears.
 When cycloid curves are used for gear tooth
profiles, the addendum of tooth is an epicycloid
and dedendum is hypocycloid.
 For interchangeable tooth forms, the size of rolling
circles must be identical for both parts of tooth
forms.

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Applications

 Cycloidal tooth forms was used for watch

gears and some instrument gears because
center distance could be accurately
maintained.

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 Wilfred Lewis has said:

“ The practical consideration of cost demands the formation of

gear teeth upon some interchangeable system. The cycloidal
system of gears can not compete with involute, because its
cutters are formed with greater difficulty and less accuracy,
and further expense is entailed by necessity for more accurate
center distances. Cyloidal teeth must not only be accurately
spaced and shaped but their wheel centers must also be fixed
with equal care to obtain satisfactory results.”

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Involute Curve
 An involute is the locus of a point on a taut
cord being unwound from the circumference of
a stationary circular disc.
 Alternatively it is the locus of a point on a
straight line (edge), which rolls without slipping
round the circumference of a stationary circular
disc.

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 Straight edge rolling around a circle

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Involute Tooth Profile

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Advantages of Involute Curve

 The tooth profile can be generated accurately

using a simple straight-sided cutter.
 The error in the center distance does not disturb
the conjugate action.
 The condition for inter mating series of gears is
automatically satisfied.
 The same cutter can be used to cut
addendum modified gears.
 The direction of normal force at the point of
contact remains the same as the gears rotate.

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Properties of Involute
 The shape of Involute curve is dependent
upon size of its base circle.
 If one involute rotating at a uniform rate of
motion, acts against another involute, it will
transmit a uniform angular motion to the
second regardless of distance between the
centers.
 The rate of motion transmitted depends
only on relative sizes of the base circles of
two involutes.
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 The common tangent to two base circles
is both the path of contact and the line
of action.
 The path of contact of an involute is a
straight line.
 The intersection of the common tangent
to the base circles with common centre
lines of Gears establishes the radii of the
pitch circles of mating involutes.

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 No involute has a pitch circle until it is
brought in contact with another involute.
 The pitch diameters of two mating involutes
are directly proportional to their respective
base circle diameters.
 Angle between common tangent to base
circles and common tangent to pitch circle
is called the pressure angle.

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History of Pressure Angle

 Until the beginning of 20th century , a pressure

angle of fourteen and half degrees was almost
universally used, possibly because sine 14.5 is near
enough to one fourth to facilitate calculations and
laying out of tooth forms.
 When automobile transmission came to be made,
the tendency of 14.5 degrees to cause undercutting
led to change the twenty degrees which was later of
adopted in the field of industrial gearing and is
today standard pressure angle.

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Pressure angle and
undercutting

With 14.5 degrees pressure angle full depth system

of gears minimum number of teeth that can be cut
without undercutting will be 32, while for 20
degrees pressure angle full depth system the
minimum number of teeth required to avoid
interference and undercutting is 17.
 Reduction of pinion teeth from 32 to 17 helped in
reducing the size of automobile gear box in that
proportion.
“The transmission of the movement of
involute tooth flanks is analogous to that
of crossed rope drive having pulley
diameters corresponding to the base
circle diameters of gears.”

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 This analogy extends further & neither
system is tied to a fixed centre distance .i.e.
the C.D can be increased or decreased
without impairing its function.
 The ratio is given by base circle or pulley
diameter ratio.

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Addendum Modification
 Single generating tool can be used for
getting different addendum
modifications on Gears.
 By addendum modification pinion tooth
can be made stronger and Gear tooth can
be made weaker, balancing the design.
 Addendum modified gears can have
higher load carrying capacity with
positive addendum modification.
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 By addendum modification undercutting
can be avoided by using different part of
involute.
Undercutting

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Gear Manufacturing

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 Forming, Rolling, Powder Metallurgy,
Sintering, ECM, Precision Casting, and
others may produce gears.
 But most gears are produced by
machining because these methods are
universal, well developed, easy to apply
and are dependable.
 The gear cutting machines are
standardised and are easily obtained
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 There are two basic types of gear
machining methods:
 Forming - It is tooth by tooth way of
machining teeth by form tool by
intermittent indexing.
 Generating - Generating uses continuous
rotary motion of work-piece and gear
cutting tool for generation of tooth
profile.
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Gear Generation Method
 Gear Planing by rack cutter
 Gear shaping by pinion type of cutter
 Hobbing of spur and helical gears by hob
cutters

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 Singly-Conjugate generation:
 Eg: Worm Gear Hobbing

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 Common Conjugate Generation
 This is a process in which the tool is
either of the form of a common
conjugate rack or is itself conjugate to
such a rack so that the gears it produces
belong to an intermating series.
 Eg: Gear Planing by rack, gear shaping by
pinion type of cutter or hobbing by spur
and helical gears.

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 One hob of a given pitch will cut the
teeth of all spur & helical gears of the
same normal pitch and pressure angle,
including all number of teeth and helix
angles.

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Hobbing Generation

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Gear Teeth Generation

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Quality Of Gears
 Quality of Gears has a strong influence on
performance of Gears like:
1. Load Capacity.
2. Gear Life
3. Smoothness of operation.
4. Vibration & Noise.
5. Gear Dynamics
6. Load distribution across face
7. Load Distribution during engagement.
 Dynamic Factor is directly dependent on
individual errors such as profile error and
pitch errors.
Quality & Cost
Quality & Application
Quality Assurance Plan
 Q.A.P should contain answers to the
following:
1. What to check?
2. Where to check?
3. Who checks it?
4. What is quantum of check?
5. Who keeps the records?
 Quality assurance plan is a document
which specifies all the checks to assure
customer about quality.
 It is to be submitted by manufacturer to
the purchaser/customer for approval.
 All inspection should be carried out as
per plan & documents should be
maintained.
 Quality Assurance Plan should cover
inspection of important components
Viz.Pinions, Gears, Shafts and Casing
etc. at following stages:
 Raw Material Inspection- For Material
Quality.
 In process Inspection-For dimensional
& Machining quality.
 Assembly Inspection & Testing- For
product quality.
 Q.A.P. Includes
 Characteristics to be checked.
1. Category of checks- Critical/Major/Minor.
2. Method of checking.
3. Quantum of checks.
4. Reference documents/Standards.
5. Acceptance Norms/ Standards.
6. Format of records.
7. Agency
Involved-Customers/Manufacturer/Subcontractor/
Third Party.
Gear Inspection
 Errors in spacing and form of the teeth
decide the quality of Gears.
 Spacing must be correct
 Form must be as correct as possible.
 Directional error of teeth must be in
control because it will decide the contact
pattern.
 Tooth thickness is important in deciding
backlash during assembly.
 The Rolling Gear Test
 In mass production, it is not possible to
measure all individual errors.
 Profile and helix are checked on sample basis
for each set up.
 Rolling test gives the overall quality and reveals
a serious kind of profile errors and effect of
burrs and handling damage if any.
 Roll test gives tooth to tooth composite error
and total composite error indicating the total
contribution of errors.
 Measurement of tooth thickness
 It can be done by :
1. Measurement over pins.
2. Measurement by tooth vernier.
3. Measurement over teeth or span
measurement.
Contact Marking & Gear
Accuracy
 Contact Marking:
 The pinion and the wheel shall be coated
in turn, with either film of toolmaker’s
blue or lacquer and the gears turned at
slow speed under sufficient pressure to
ensure contact between the teeth.
 Accuracy of Gears
 The accuracy of meshing shall be regarded as
satisfactory, if the contact marking covers the
following amounts of tooth flank area on each helix.
 1. Class A1: At least 40% of working depth for
50% of length and at least 20% of working depth for a
further of 40% of length.
 2. Class A2: At least 40% of working depth for
35% of length and at least 20% of working depth for a
further 35% of the length.
 3. Class B: At least 40% of working depth for
25% of length and at least 20% of working depth for a
further 25% of length.
Backlash
 “ It is generally defined as play between
mating pair of gears in assembled
condition.”
 The nominal backlash ordinarily provided
is ample to cover the effect of errors
which may act to reduce it.
 Backlash should be adequate to ensure
free running of gears.
BACKLASH
 “In
power transmitting trains loaded
unidirectional, backlash is functionally
unimportant, and too much is better
than too little”- Gear Engineering by H E
Merritt.
Gear Nomenclature

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Module

 Module, m of continental origin, is the reciprocal of

the diametral pitch when both are expressed
 with reference to the same unit of length, and may
be visualised as pitch diameter per tooth. The
continental unit of module is the millimetre, and
the corresponding circular pitch is p =Π.m
 Types Of Gears

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 Spur Gears

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 Helical Gears

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 Double Helical Gear

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 Herringbone Gears

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 Worm Gears

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 Straight Bevel Gears

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 Spiral Bevel Gears

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 Hypoid Gears

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 Pinion &Internal Gear

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 Rack & Pinion

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 Planetary Gears

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 Planetary Gears
Speed Variation

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 End Of Part I

Any Doubts Till Now?

Please Get Them Clarified
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LUBRICATION OF GEARS

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History Of Gear Lubrication
 First gears were said to consist of wooden wheels with
wood pegs for teeth, since speeds and pressures were
low, lubrication was not a problem.
 Metal gears of cast iron required lubricant to reduce
noise and wear. Animal fat were used followed by
petroleum fractions when they became available.
 However with increase in speeds and closer tolerance
the use of lower viscosity gear oils started.
 AGMA was formed in 1917 and it issued certain
engineering standards for gear lubricants.
 The introduction of hypoid gears changed the
requirements of gear lubricants and led to use of what is
called Extreme Pressure (EP) gear oils.

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Wolf and Mougey in 1935-33 stated
“ Advances in Gear design were urgently
awaiting the development of satisfactory
extreme pressure lubrication”

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Introduction to Lubrication

 When one surface moves over another ,

there is always some resistance to
movement, and the force which opposes
movement is called friction.
 The two surfaces that are in contact with
each other, the load is carried by many
high points or asperities on the surfaces.

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 If friction is more then surfaces can
overheat or gets worn out and damaged.
 Lubrication is introduced between two
sliding surfaces by adding gaseous,
liquid or solid lubricant at the sliding
interface in order to reduce friction &
wear, and to carry away heat and debris
generated during sliding process.
 The use of liquid or gas lubricant is
known as fluid film lubrication.

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 Thick Film Lubrication: Total separation
of asperities
 Thin Film or Mixed Lubrication: Partial
separation of asperities.
 Boundary Lubrication: Entire load is
carried by asperities lubricated by
surface films of molecularly thin liquids,
gases or solids.

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Gear Contact Conditions

 Counterformal Contact: Very high

stresses due to counterformal contact
conditions

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 Gears transfer power through relative
tiny areas of mutual contact in the form
of very narrow bands, so narrow as to be
spoken as “Line Contact”
 The areas are subjected to very high
stresses.
 Thus gear are to be made from strong
and hard material.

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 According to MacConchie and Newman contact
pressures of 7000-10,000 Kg/Sq cm are
observed in case of gears compare with 10
Kg/Sq cm for journal bearings.
 Meritt mentions that the product of pressure in
PSI and sliding velocity in fpm may have values
as high as 30x106 to 60x106 .
 Also instead of an oil film thickness of about
0.001 cm as is present in journal bearings, the
lubricant film formed between meshing gear
teeth is of the order of surface roughness of
two gears.

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Action between Gear Tooth

 The first contact is between a point near

the root of driving tooth (upper gear) & a
point at the tip of driven tooth.
 At this point the
preceding tooth
are still in mesh &
carry max load.

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 View B: The contact has advanced to
position where there is approximate
beginning of “single tooth” contact.

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 In view C, contact is at pitch line, where
there is pure rolling-no sliding. The
direction of sliding reverses at pitch line.

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 View D: Shows approximate end of single
tooth contact. Another pair is about to
make contact.

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 View E: Two pairs are in mesh, Original
pair is about to disengage.

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Sliding in Gears
 The first contact is between a point near the
root of driving tooth (upper gear) & a point
at the tip of driven tooth.
 Since the travel distance of addendum
profile is greater than dedendum profile,
SLIDING occurs until the contact point
reaches pitch circle of both the gears.
 Here at pitch point the contact is pure
rolling.
 As the engagement continues sliding
reverses at pitch line and continues.
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 Spur : “Theoretical lines of contact run
straight across tooth surface.”

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 With helical, herringbone, spiral bevel
gears because of twisted shape of teeth,
the theoretical lines of contact slant
across tooth face.
 Direction of sliding
is not at right angle
& some sidewise
sliding occurs.

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Effect of Sliding on gear
lubrication
 In selection of lubricants for gears, tooth
sliding has two aspects:
1. It increases the operational temperature
of lubricant because of friction.
2. Sliding along the lines of contact tends
to wipe the lubricant away i.e. it is more
difficult to form lubricating film.

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Review of Contact Conditions
 Very high stresses due to counterformal contact
conditions.
 Gears have combination of rolling & sliding motion
with amount of sliding varying with respect to
rolling throughout the mesh.
 Sliding increases the operational temperature of
lubricant because of friction.
 Sliding along the lines of contact tends to wipe the
lubricant away.
 In spur and straight bevel gears there are
alternately one pair and two pair of teeth in contact.

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Elastohydrodynamic
Lubrication
 It was earlier believed that gears ran under
boundary lubrication conditions.
 The existence of EHL was suspected long
before it could be proved.
 The wear rates in gears were very low which
implied existence of films sufficiently thick
to separate opposing surfaces.
 The predicted values of film thickness were
so low (0.1-I micron) that it was
inconceivable for contacting surfaces to be
separated by viscous film.

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Explaination
 It was assumed that the solid surfaces were
perfectly rigid and the viscosity of oil was
constant.
 However in counterformal contact as that of
Gears, the film thickness would increase
because of elastic deformation of surfaces.
 The viscosity between the surface would be
raised 100,000 times.
 Lubrication under these condition is named
ELASTOHYDODYNAMIC LUBRICATION

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Principle of EHL
 A lubrication phenomenon occurring
during elastic deformation of two non-
conforming surfaces under high load.
 “A high load carried by a small area (as in
Gears) causes a temporary increase in
lubricant viscosity as the lubricant is
momentarily trapped between slightly
deformed opposing surfaces.”

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Boundary & Extreme Pressure
Lubrication
 Under normal condition of speed and load, two
metals surfaces are effectively separated by a
lubricant film.
 As load increases or speed decreases , metal to
metal contact occurs.
 This causes a rise in temperature in contact zone
due to frictional heat.
 The consequence is viscosity loss which reduces
film forming ability of the lubricant and ability to
minimize metal to metal contact.
 Under these conditions, the nature of lubrication
changes from hydrodynamic to mixed to boundary
lubrication.
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Extreme Pressure
agents or Antiwear
additives offer
protection under mixed
film and boundary
lubrication

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Ways of forming primary film:
• Adsorption
• Chemisorption
3. Chemical Reaction
 In severe load condition such as in steel - steel gears
oxide film may be inadequate and additives, which will
form films having higher melting point and greater
adherence to metal surface are required.

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Working of EP Agents
 EP additives undergo decomposition at
the pressures, temperatures and other
conditions at contact.
 The decomposition produces a film on
tooth surface which is softer, less brittle
and more adherent and more effective
than oxide film in supporting load .

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 If EP film is readily wiped out or it is
working close to its melting point may
cause rapid wear.
 Thus EP additives intended for use in
case hardened gears often causes
excessive wear of bronze worm gears at
high oil temperatures.
 Such oils are therefore not advisable for
bronze worm gears if oil temperatures
are consistently above 70 o C.

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 Godfrey concludes after
experimentations that “ The presence of
iron oxide, a carbide and silicon in
addition to iron sulfide in surface of steel
lubricated by sulfurized oil indicates that
several chemical mechanisms are
occurring during extreme pressure
lubrication.”

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Functional Requirements of
Lubrication
1. 2% of oil is used for lubricating purpose
. Oil film formed reduces metal to metal
contact.
2. 98% of oil is used for cooling purpose.
3. Acts as medium to carry the special
purpose additives and clean the
surfaces.

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Lubricant Selection
 In order to accomplish the function, the
lubricant must have sufficient viscosity to
separate the mating surface and also have
appropriate additive to minimize thermal
and oxidative degradation.
 The user must ascertain certain
performance attributes for the gearbox to
make a reasonable selection.
 In addition to gear , there are many other
components that must also be served by the
fluid in the gearbox.

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 Consideration must be given to bearings,
seals and other auxiliary equipment e.g
Pumps, Heat exchangers etc that may be
affected by choice of lubricant.
 Therefore selecting the correct lubricant

for gear drive system includes addressing

the lubrication need of all associated
components as well.

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 Following details are required for selection of
correct lubricant:
 The type of gearing
 Material of construction of all system components
such as gears, bearings, seals, piping, sight glasses
 Operating conditions such as ambient temperature,
operating oil temperature, max and min pitch line
speeds.
 Any critical special circumstances such as low
temperature start-up, higher ambient, high
transient loads.

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Types of Gear Lubricants
 R &O Inhibited Oils
 Antiwear/Antiscuff Oils (EP Oils)
 Compounded Gear Oils

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 Lubrication Classification according to AGMA
standard 9005-D94 .
1. Rust & Oxidation –Inhibited Gear Lubricant.
 Petroleum blend base oil.
 Additives for protection against rust &
oxidation.

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2. Compounded Gear Lubricants
 Blend of Petroleum base oil with rust & Oxidation
inhibitors , demulsibility additives and 3 percent
to 10 percent fatty or synthetic fatty oils.
 Used with worm drives.

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3. Extreme Pressure Gear Lubricants
(EP Oils)
 Petroleum base oils with EP additives
 Suitable for Heavily loaded case hardened
gears.

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GSP Consultants
RECOMMENDED GEARBOX OIL

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Lubricant Properties
1. Air Entrainment
2. Compatibility
3. Corrosion
5. Demulsibility
6. Elastomer Compatibility
7. Filterability
8. Flash Point/Fire Point
9. Foaming

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10. Oxidation stability and thermal
resistance
 Oxidation is chemical process in which oxygen combines
with free radicals within lubricant to produce acids that
can corrode metals and polymers.
 It increases viscosity and is enhanced by presence of
catalyst such as iron, copper, water etc and elevated
temperatures.
 A thermally unstable compound can decompose in
response to heat alone.
 In gearboxes hot spots can be areas where accelerated
aging and thermal decomposition occurs.

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11. Viscosity
 Kinematic viscosity is defined as ratio of
dynamic viscosity to fluid density.
 Viscosity of oil is its resistance to flow.
 It plays fundamental role in lubrication.
 ISO VG-Kinematic Viscosity- 1
centistokes = 1 mm2/s

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 ISO system classifies lubricants solely on kinematic
viscosity measured at 400 C.
 The choice of 400 C is compromise between

maximum operating and ambient temperature.

 Viscosity increase in used oil (in service oil) is

indication that oil has deteriorated by oxidation or

contamination.
 While decrease is usually indicated dilution by lower

viscosity oil, shear of Viscosity Index Improvers.

 The extent of permissible deterioration depends on

application.

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12. Viscosity Index
 It is an engineering parameter that
accurately describes the viscosity
temperature characteristics of the oil.

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LUBRICANT AND THEIR
COMPOSITION
 A typical lubricating oil is composed of 95%
base stock and 5% additives.
 Base stock is a term used to describe plain
mineral oil.
 The physical properties of oil depends on its
base stock.
 Chemicals which are deliberately added to
the oil in order to improve its properties are
called additives.
 Additives can radically change the
properties of oil and are essential to its
overall performance.
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Lubricant Additives & Their
Functions
 Additives improve the lubricating ability of base
oils by enhancing the desirable properties already
present or adding new properties.
 Additives are therefore integral part of modern formulated
lubricants.
 Lubricant additives can broadly be categorized as being
chemically active or chemically inert.
 Chemically active additives interact chemically with metals to
form a protective film.
 Chemically inert additives improve the physical properties for
overall effective performance of lubricant

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Some Important Additives
 Antiwear and Extreme Pressure Agents
 Both antiwear and extreme pressure
function by thermal decomposition and by
forming products that react with metal
surface to form solid protective layer.
 Alkyl and aryl disulfides and polysulfide ,
chlorinated hydrocarbons are most widely
used EP agents

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 Oxidation Inhibitors
 All modern lubricant by virtue of being
hydrocarbon based are susceptible to oxidation.
 The process of oxidation proceeds in three stages
 Initiation stage: Lubricant reacts with oxygen forms
radicals
 Propagation Stage: Radicals react with oxygen to
form hydroperoxides.
 Hydroperoxides decompose to form alcohols,
keteones and carboxylic acids

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 These acids attack iron metal and copper and lead
bearings to form metal carboxylates which
enhances the rate of oxidation.
 Rate of oxidation doubles with 10 deg rise in
temperature.
 Wear metals acts as catalyst.
 Oxidation leads to lubricant decomposition - oil
thickening , sludge formation and corrosive acids.
 Sulfur , phosphorus act as radical scavangers

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 Foam Inhibitor
 Lubricants are subjected to agitation which
encourages foam formation through air
entrainment.
 Excessive foaming will result in ineffective
lubrication and cause oxidative degradation
of lubricant.
 These additives have limited solubility in oil
and are therefore added as fine dispersants.
 Silicones are commonly used foam inhibitor.

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Methods of Lubrication
 Splash Lubrication
 Most common & foolproof method of
lubrication.
 Gear dips & in turn supplies oil to pinion &
bearings.
 Distribution to the bearings is obtained by
throw off to oil gallery or by oil scrappers
which delivers the oil to oil trough.
 Splash lubricated system can be used for
pitchline velocity of 4000 FPM.
 For higher speed special care should be
taken.
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 Forced Lubrication
 Used on almost all high speed drives & low
speed drives where splash lubrication can
not be used due to gear arrangement.
 A simple forced lubrication consist of pump
with suction line & supply lines to deliver
the oil.
 However lubrication system of high speed
drives include many of following
components:

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 Large Reservoir
 Filters
 Pumps
 Heat Exchangers
 Pressure Control Devices
 Safety Alarms
 Flow Indicators
 Temperature Regulators etc.

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Lubrication failures
 Lubricating oil does not contain right
additive.
 Less viscous , fails to develop oil film.
 Heat developed by gears is not removed
quickly by the lubricating oil.
 Wear particles are not flushed away by
the lubricating oil.
 Contamination of oil.

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Effects of Lubrication failures

 Metal to Metal contact resulting in higher

wear.
 High friction between mating gears
resulting in noise, vibration and
overheating.
 Bearing Failures.
 Scuffing, Scoring, Pitting of Gear
surfaces.

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GUIDELINES FOR SAMPLING AND
TESTING OF NEW OILS

Sr. No. Test Optional/Recommended

1 Appearance Recommended
2 Viscosity (40 °C) Recommended
3 Acid Number Recommended
4 Water Optional if oil not clear and bright
5 Oxidation Inhibitor Optional
6 Elemental Analysis Optional

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GUIDELINES FOR SAMPLING AND
TESTING IN-SERVICE OILS

Sr. No. Test Gear/Circulating Oils

1 Appearance Recommended
2. Viscosity (40 °C) Recommended
3. Acid No. Recommended.
Recommended if oil is not
4. Water
clear and bright.
5 Oxidation Inhibitor Optional
6. Insolubles Recommended.
7. Rust evaluation Optional
8. Foaming Characterstics As needed
Wear Particle
9 Recommended
Concentration
10 Wear Debris Analysis As Needed
11 Elemental Analysis
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Key Parameters- Oil Testing
 Viscosity
 Several methods for measuring viscosity of lubricating
oil.
 Most widely used method is ASTM D 445

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 Viscosity Index
 The viscosity of petroleum blend base oil
decrease with rise in temperature.
 Method adopted ASTM D 2270/IP 226.

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 Acid Number
 The lubricant in enclosed gear set is subjected to
very severe service, being thrown from gear teeth
and shafts in the form of mist or spray.
 In atomized condition, it is exposed to oxidizing
effect of air.
 Fluid friction, and in some cases metallic friction
generates heat which raises lubricant temperature.
 The violent churning and agitation of lubricant by
gears also raises the temperature.
 Raising the temperature increases the rate of
oxidation

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 Oxidation of oil is a complex process and
produce acidic contents.
 Total Acid No. is amount of KOH in mg
required to neutralize one gram of oil.
 Test Method used ASTM D 664
(Potentiometric Titration)

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