Review of miniature gear manufacturing

Abstract

Gears having outside diameter less than 10.mm are referred as miniature gears. They are used for actuation and driving the components of micro/nano electromechanical systems (MEMS/NEMS) and miniature devices and products to transmit power and/or motion from one shaft to another shaft. Demand for different types of miniature gears of different materials is growing at an increasing rate due to the rapid developments in the areas of miniaturization, micro-fabrication, micro-systems technologies, and their applications. This chapter presents a detailed review of various types of manufacturing processes for the miniature gears. It covers working principles, advantages, limitations, and applications of different categories of conventional processes, i.e., additive, subtractive and deforming, and unconventional or advanced processes for miniature gear manufacturing and their variants. It concludes with a comparative evaluation of the different manufacturing processes described in this chapter. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.