Cast Iron Gears

The cast iron is a very popular material for use in manufacture of gears. It shows excellent wearing properties as well as good machinability. The complex shape of gears are easily made by casting methods. The cast iron gears that has cut teeth are employed ideally in cases where smooth action does not play a crucial role.

Cast Iron are typically used for bigger gears where it is quite advantageous for a savings in the machining costs. Cast steels offers a high tensile strength, yield strengths, along with excellent internal damping properties.

Advantages of Cast Iron Gears
Cast irons are used in places of steel for getting considerable savings in cost. The Cast iron offers the following advantages in design and production:

A low production and tooling cost
Ready availability
Perfect machinability
Easy for casting into complex shapes
Excellent wear resistance
High hardness (particularly in case of white irons)
Good inherent damping properties

Properties of Cast Iron Gears
Malleable cast irons are often a gear manufacturers favourite because of excellent machinability. Also they offer significant ductility. The following table compares some of the properties of Cast irons in their suitability as gear material.

Materials	Condition	Brinell Hardness Number	Minimum Tensile Strength (kglcm²)
Malleable cast iron: White heart castings, Grade B Black heart castings, Grade B		217 max. 149 max	2800 3200
Carbon steel
0.3% carbon	Normalised	143	5000
0.3% carbon	Hardened and tempered	143	6000
0.3% carbon	Normalised	143	5800

Application of Cast iron Gears
Cast iron are a popular ingredient in many types of gear application. Some of which are listed below:

Cast Iron gear pumps
Gear Pumps made of Cast iron offer good resistance to wear and tear along with durability.

Snow Thrower
This Is a relatively latest application. A snow thrower utilising heavy duty.