For our mechanical engineering senior capstone project, our team worked with the United States Air Force to identify a finishing process for additively manufactured spur gears. The Air Force had problems with the unpredictable lifetime and long lead times of machined gears. Gears could be manufactured additively from 17-4ph stainless steel on an EOS M290 DMLS (direct metal laser sintering) machine. However, AM gears have a rough surface finish, which greatly reduces the life of the gear. Our teams' goal was to research and identify a repeatable and effective method for finishing the gears to an appropriate surface roughness. Ultimately our team found isotropic superfinishing to be an ideal process. We contacted REM, a company specializing in this process, and facilitated a relationship with the USAF. This relationship enables operational sustainability and refinement of the process. More details are included in the full report.
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