Applying the photo-elasticity method to study teeth stresses in a variety of spur gears

Abstract Stress analysis is a branch of mechanical engineering that investigates the stress and strains generated in materials when subjected to forces. Photoelasticity is one of the well-known methods in plane stress analysis. This analysis was conducted to show the superiority of the photoelasticity method in investigating the stresses of the spur gear teeth. Four cases of various spur gear teeth profiles have been presented. The principal stress difference was calculated experimentally for each case and it was validated numerically and the error percentage reached 4.15%. An enhancement percentage was achieved at 33% in case 3 leading to the fact that using the asymmetric spur gear teeth reduces the generated stresses.