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Curtiss-Wright Announces New US Patent for “High Fatigue Strength Components Requiring Areas of High Hardness”

16 November 2020

News Release

Nov 16, 2020

Curtiss-Wright’s Surface Technologies Division, a leading global provider of highly engineered surface treatments and analytical services, is proud to announce our newly issued US Patent Number 10,619,222 entitled “High Fatigue Strength Components Requiring Areas of High Hardness”.

For applications in gears, splines and torqueing devices where wear and bending fatigue strength are critical, metal components are typically hardened to levels as high as HRC 60 which minimizes the wear of the contact surfaces. Although high hardness generally means high yield strength and thus high fatigue strength, as the material hardness exceeds HRC 50, ductility begins to decrease thereby actually reducing fatigue strength. Component features such as the teeth of gears and the splines of drive shafts, need high hardness in areas of wear but also critically need high fatigue strength in the roots of a gear tooth or spline.

In an effort to develop components with optimum wear and fatigue strength, Curtiss-Wright has invented a hybrid manufacturing approach where for example gear teeth are hardened to highest levels in faces and flanks but root areas are only hardened to the level optimizing ductile yield strength. Then, laser or shot peening is applied to optimize overall fatigue strength. This process provides a gear or other component with characteristics of a highest level of wear while attaining superior fatigue strength.

Click to view the patent

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