Helical Gear – Advantages ,Disadvantages and Application

Helical Gears

Unlike Spur gears, Helical gears and Helical Gearbox both have the capacity to conduct a smooth operation. The teeth on a helical gear cut at an angle to the face of the gear. So, during the process when two of the teeth start to engage, the contact is gradual- starting at one end of the tooth and maintaining contact as the gear rotates into full engagement. When it comes to transmissions, helical is the most commonly used gears and it even generates large amounts of thrust.

Advantages of helical gear

1. As we have discussed in our previous post that in case of helical gear, engagement of helical gear teeth will be gradual and engagement will start from one end of a tooth of helical gear with the other tooth of mating helical gear and spread continuously throughout the tooth as gear rotates. Such gradual engagement of helical gear will provide the silent and smooth operation.
2. Helical gears are preferred for heavy load applications
3. Helical gears could be used to transmit the motion and power between two parallel shafts and also between two non parallel shafts.
4. Helical gears will have more capability to transmit load between two parallel shafts as compared to similar module and equivalent width of spur gears.
5. There will be less wear and tear in case of helical gear during operation as compared to wear and tear in case spur gears operation as if we consider helical gears operation, load will be distributed between several teeth at any time and that is why there will be less wear and tear in operation of helical gears.

Disadvantages of helical gear

1. When a pair of helical gear meshes with each other, there will be creation of axial thrust load on gear due to helix angle of gear teeth and therefore gearbox designer has to select such bearings those are able to absorb and support this axial thrust load.
2. There will be sliding movement between mating gear teeth in case of helical gear and heat generation will be more as compared to spur gear application. Therefore helical gear requires good quality of lubrication.
3. One pair of mating helical gear will have less efficiency as compared to efficiency of mating spur gears of similar size.
4. Power loss in case of helical gear train operation will be more as compared to spur gear train operation.
5. Manufacturing and designing cost of helical gears will be more as compared to spur gear designing and manufacturing cost.

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