In gear manufacture there are different types of gears. Two of the most common types of gears spur and helical. Both types of gears are used to various industries. Marples Gears specializes in fine pitch spur and helical gears manufacturer up to AGMA class 13 for the aerospace industry. For a custom engineered quoted from Marples Gears email us at info@marplesgearsinc.com with your print.
Spur gears have involute gear teeth parallel to the gear axis whereas helical gears have that gear teeth set at various angles to the gear axis. While there is no standard angle for the teeth to be set at the gear teeth the angle is usually even. One issue with the use of helical gears is the end thrust created by that helix angle. One of the major benefits of their use is the noise reduce caused by a higher contact ratio, essentially more teeth engaged at one time. Helical gears have higher tooth strength and can hand much higher loads than spur gears. Helical gears can also transmit power between either parallel or non-parallel shafts, while spur gears can only transfer power between parallel shafts.
Spur gears on the other hand are more efficient and generally have a lower cost. Spur gears run well at slow to moderate speeds, but they tend to vibrate and become noisy at higher speeds. Spur gears are also much simpler to design and manufacture. Gear shafts for spur gears are parallel and therefore can be mounted easily using ball bearings. On the other hand, helical gears generate axial thrust so the bearing arrangement of the shafts in this case should handle the axial thrust along with radial thrust. You may have to go for a roller bearing or a thrust bearing in this case.
