Coated planet gear journal bearing and process of making same
AssigneeUnited Technologies Corporation
InventorsRoger Michael Barnsby, Albert Hunt McKibbin, Rainer Werner Aufischer
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The production of a bearing surface by coating a known bearing material directly on the surface of a gear bore. A process of coating bearing materials directly onto the surface of a gear and the product thereof. The surface is preferably the inner bore surface of a planet gear. The coating methods include sputtering and vapor deposition. The bearing material applied as a coating is preferably a copper-lead composition. The resultant gear having a bearing coating can be useful in any high density, high efficiency epicyclic gear train for aircraft, marine or land based power transmissions.
Claims24
A planetary gear assembly for high speed and heavy load, comprising:
- a ring gear;
- a sun gear disposed within said ring gear;
- a plurality of planet gears meshing with both said ring and sun gears, each said planet gear having an inner bore surface;
- each of said planet gears being supported in the assembly by a pin disposed therein, a planet carrier supporting each of said pins;
- and
- wherein a bearing material is applied directly to said inner bore surface of each of said planet gears and the bearing material forms a coating having a thickness between about 0.0016 to about 0.0040 in.
A planet gear comprising an outer surface and an inner bore surface, wherein the inner bore surface is coated with a bearing material and the bearing material forms a coating having a thickness between about 0.0016 to about 0.0040 in.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.