ABSTRACT
Gear manufacturers have increased their knowledge of the production of quality gears and gear-like components. This knowledge has led to many improvements including lower noise, lighter weight, and lower cost as well as increased load-carrying capacity to handle higher speeds and torque with a minimum amount of generated heat. Improvements in wear resistance, contact fatigue strength, endurance, and impact strength help to eliminate premature gearbox failure. Formation of considerable compressive residual stresses at the surface and in the subsurface help inhibit crack development and resist tensile bending fatigue. Sharp corners sometimes get excessively heated compared to the rest of the teeth surface, which leads to grain coarsening and, in some instances, even grain boundary liquation making them to be susceptible to crack development. Induction heating is a multifaceted, multidimensional phenomenon comprised of complex interactions involving electromagnetics, heat transfer, materials science, metallurgy, and circuit analysis.
