Gears, especially in open gearing applications, share a set of well-known performance problems
that crop up again and again across many different applications.
The most common ones include excessive noise, vibration, heat, weight and corrosion.
Gears also tend to be either over-lubricated or subject to wear, which respectively causes
contamination from grease or metal particles.
At best, all these performance issues will result in gears that are expensive to maintain.
At worst, they will cause gears to fail prematurely, driving costs even higher.
(Machine Design-Engineering Resources/Intech Co.)