Investigating the Effects of Wear, Lubrication and Material Pairing on the NVH Performance of Plastic Gears

Release Time：12 Jan,2026

<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="/ueditor/php/upload/image/20260112/1768193815131302.png" title="1768193815131302.png" alt="3.png"/></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">High-performance polymer gears are increasingly supplanting their metallic counterparts across diverse engineering applications, attributable to their multifaceted advantages. These include a markedly lower density contributing to weight reduction, intrinsic self-lubricating properties obviating the need for external lubrication, cost-efficient scalability in production, enhanced noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) performance, and superior resistance to chemical degradation and corrosion. Injection molding remains the predominant fabrication technique for thermoplastic gears, offering extensive design latitude. This process enables the consolidation of multiple functional elements into a singular, integrally molded component. Furthermore, it facilitates precise modifications to gear macro- and microgeometry, such as increased fillet radii at the tooth root and tailored tooth profile configurations (Ref. 1). Despite their advantages, polymer gears exhibit several limitations relative to metallic gears. Principal disadvantages encompass lower load-bearing capacity, reduced thermal conductivity, limited thermal stability, and comparatively lower dimensional accuracy during fabrication. Among these, the constraint in load-bearing capacity is deemed the most critical, thereby motivating extensive research efforts aimed at its enhancement. These efforts include the development of optimized gear geometries (Ref. 2) and the formulation of advanced polymer materials engineered to withstand higher mechanical stresses (Ref. 3). Amidst escalating customer expectations, the acoustic performance—specifically the noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) characteristics—of polymer gears has emerged as a critical design consideration. A seminal study by Hoskins et al. (Ref. 4) systematically investigated the acoustic behavior of polymer gears, examining the influence of material composition and operational parameters on the resultant sound frequency spectrum. The study identified surface topography, wear, and thermal conditions—arising from interfacial interactions between meshing gear teeth—as principal determinants of acoustic energy intensity. Trobentar et al. (Ref. 5) investigated the acoustic behavior of polymer gears featuring distinct tooth geometries, namely conventional involute profiles and S-type profiles. The latter are characterized by a convex addendum and a concave dedendum, resulting in a smoothly curved contact trajectory analogous to the shape of the letter “S.” The study demonstrated that S-gears generated lower acoustic emissions compared to involute gears, a phenomenon attributed to more favorable and continuous meshing conditions. In a related investigation, Polanec et al. (Ref. 6) evaluated the acoustic performance of polyoxymethylene (POM) gears subjected to various physical vapor deposition (PVD) surface treatments. The study examined the effects of aluminum, chromium, and chromium nitride coatings. Results indicated that uncoated gears exhibited the lowest sound pressure levels, implying that the applied coatings did not facilitate acoustic attenuation. Moreover, the coatings experienced degradation during operation, which exacerbated frictional interactions and disrupted meshing dynamics, thereby elevating the emitted sound pressure levels. Van Wissen et al. (Ref. 7) conducted a comprehensive study on the noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) characteristics of gears fabricated from Polyamide 46 (PA46). The investigation focused on the acoustic performance of two configurations: a homogeneous PA46 gear pair and a hybrid pairing of PA46 and steel. Experimental trials were performed across three discrete rotational velocities—200 rpm, 500 rpm, and 800 rpm—and torque levels ranging from 0.2 Nm to 1 Nm. The findings revealed a pronounced escalation in acoustic emissions with increasing rotational speed, accompanied by analogous trends under elevated torque conditions, underscoring the sensitivity of NVH behavior to both dynamic and load parameters. A comprehensive investigation into the NVH characteristics of polymer gears was undertaken by Cathelin (Ref. 8). The study underscored the multifactorial and condition-sensitive nature of NVH behavior in plastic gears. Multiple unreinforced polymer grades were evaluated, with each test configuration employing gear pairs composed of identical materials. Comparative analyses against a reference steel gear pair operating under equivalent conditions demonstrated the comparatively superior NVH performance of the polymer gears, highlighting their potential for noise-sensitive applications</span></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">The present study proposes an experimental framework for characterizing the NVH performance of polymer gears under conditions representative of real-world applications. Furthermore, it delineates material selection criteria aimed at optimizing NVH behavior in gear systems. Five distinct polymer material pairings—comprising both unreinforced and fiber-reinforced formulations—were evaluated, with each test employing dissimilar materials for the meshing gear components. The resulting acoustic and vibrational responses were systematically analyzed and benchmarked against those of a conventional steel gear pair.</span></p>