Surface Characteristics and Their Impact on Press Joint Strength

Press fitting is a commonly used method in the assembly of shafts and gearwheels in gearboxes andare using the friction created between them to hold them together. To increase productivity Scania CVAB in Södertälje, Sweden, are going to replace the current hard machining method for layshafts. Whiletesting the new methods in rig it occurred that the gearwheel slipped in tangential direction towardsthe layshaft at a lower torque then with the current method even through all requirements on thelayshafts surface was meet. The purpose and aim with this study is to investigate differences betweenthe methods and to find new requirements for the layshaft. The torque of slip, (Ms) established in atorque test rig and analysis of surface roughness, hardness and microstructure conducted of both thelayshafts and gearwheels. The characteristics of the layshaft surface was also analysed and comparedbetween the different hard machining methods. The study concludes that no correlation between thesurface parameters and the Ms occurred and no major differences in the material between themethods. The study also concluded that the Ms between the layshaft and gearwheel is lower if thelayshaft surface is harder and smoother than the gearwheel surface