Surface Durability Study of 3D Printed Gears Using Two Different Materials

This study evaluated surface durability use of manufacture 3D printed gears. Polymer gears were 3D printed using PLA, Tough-PLA, and TPU materials, Through different combinations of materials,three gears of the same size were manufactured: the PLA gear, the PLA plus TUP gear and the Tought PLA plus TPU gear. The surface wear test of the 3d-printed gears were on a self-designed test bench. The differences in mechanical performance between the polymer filaments were attributed to differences in crystallinity and the uniqueness of the fused deposition modeling (FDM) process, but by combining two materials with different features, it is possible to change the mechanical properties of 3D printed gears.In this study, from the changes of torque data during the whole experiment also showed the difference of transmission efficiency of three different gears.Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed the different surface wear of three different gears under the same test conditions. During the gear surface wear test, a thermal camera was used to recorded the surface temperature changes of the gears, and SEM was used to analyze the wear of the gear surface. The test results showed Tough-PLA Plus TPU gear showed the best wear performance among the three different 3D printing gears tested.