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Summary

BW16C bellows couplings are used to relieve axial misalignment between each stepper motor and its
driven axis. Bellows couplings were selected due to high torsional rigidity. However, these particular
couplings have two critical flaws that result in early failure, even when used within specification:
Fatigue through the stainless steel bellows
Glue delamination between the steel bellows and aluminum axis mount.
The first failure only occurs when the coupling is used under load, even if the coupling is used within
specification. This proves the glue can handle high torsional stress without failure. Other methods
were used to verify said claim, as discussed in the text.
The second failure occurs when the coupling is either an infant failure due to manufacturing defects
or when the coupling is lightly loaded or not loaded at all. This proves the glue is failing due to low
cycle stress fatigue.
It was initially unknown that the coupling was assembled with glue between the stainless steel bellows
and each aluminum end cap. This glue-metal interface is defective by design, and intermittently
defective by manufacturing process. There are several ways the manufacturer could correct the faulty
design, but not in situ; all couplings in all machines must be replaced, and a new coupling design
chosen. We have preliminarily chosen a jaw coupling with a stiff spider, to reduce backlash.

Figure 1: Bucket o' fail. Stepper motor (bottom right) shown for scale

Methodology
Initial coupling tests were well beyond Ghost Gunner's theoretical limits, to accelerate time to failure:
-4 mm parallel misalignment. Ghost Gunner's maximum theoretical offset is 0.2 mm. Tfail=2-5 minutes
-3 deg angular misalignment. Ghost Gunner's maximum theoretical offset is 0.3 deg. Tfail=1-3 hours
-1 mm axial misalignment. Ghost Gunner's maximum theoretical offset is 0.1 mm. Tfail=11 hours
No additional testing would have occurred if the above tests had not rapidly failed. The failure mode in
these early tests was fatigue through the stainless steel bellows (figure 2, left), NOT glue failure (figure
2, right). Additional testing was required to better understand coupling lifetime.

Figure 2: Initial failures due to SS fatigue (left), long term failures due to glue delamination (right)
The next test used Ghost Gunner's actual Z axis hardware to better approximate actual installation
parameters. However, assuming the couplings would take months to fail, the motor movement was
increased well beyond Ghost Gunner's actual acceleration/velocity profiles. In particular, a sawtooth
acceleration profile was used, accelerating the stepper from stopped to 500 rpm in 200ms, then
dropping to 0rpm as fast as possible (i.e. the stepper was abruptly stopped, i.e. no further pulses were
sent), then the profile immediately repeated, except in the opposite direction (i.e. the stepper's direction
pin was inverted), to allow the test to return to the starting position.
The above test was performed three times, with failures occurring between 11 and 28 hours, which was
less than the anticipated 7-10 days (arbitrarily chosen as an acceptable lifetime). All three failures
occurred at the glue-metal interface (figure 2, right). Further testing was needed, but nothing seemed
out of the ordinary; the assumption at the time was acceleration and/or high velocity resulted in failure
The next test used the same Z axis hardware, but used Ghost Gunner's actual motion planner (GRBL):
-Acceleration profile: trapezoidal (zero, ramp, steady, ramp, zero)
-Acceleration: 30 mm/s^2
-Max rpm: 500 rev/minute (BW16C is rated to 18 krpm)
-Test Profile: Horizontal linear movement supported with two linear shafts.
-Test mass: 6 kg, radially distributed around bellows axis
-Max instantaneous Force (theoretical) = 5.4 mN
-Max Torque (continuous velocity, theoretical) = 70.6 mNm (part is rated to 1.6 Nm)
This test is summarized in figure 3.

Figure 3: Test apparatus used to simulate Ghost Gunner Z gantry movement.


Result: Even though our acceleration and velocity profiles were much lower than before, the same
failure occurred (glue delamination) in relatively the same time period (~9-20 hours). Thus,
acceleration and velocity aren't the root cause of failure, except when the bearing is heavily loaded, in
which case the stainless steel bellows fatigues before the glue fully delaminates.

Figure 4: Failure mode: Glue cyclically delaminates from aluminum and/or SS surface until the
remnant 'good' glue causes catastrophic failure. Black debris is rubbing due to continued rotation
after failure (non-driven side stalls).
To validate the conclusion that the glue delaminates regarless of load, 21 DUTs were connected to
Ghost Gunner mounts and run nonstop at 250 rpm until failure, as shown in figure 5. Technical
difficulties caused the test to intermittently stop several times, but the first unit failed after not more
than 12 hours, followed by a second failure not more than 30 hours later. This test is ongoing,

Figure 5: Constant velocity test rig: cyclically testing to failure at a constant 250 rpm, with no applied
load (just the shaft) and minimal angular misalignment
It's possible the two failuring DUTs observed to date are infant failures, but this is also unacceptable, as
it indicates 35% of Ghost Gunner machines will fail in one day of use (0.65^4, because there are four
couplings per machine). This 90% failure rate generally agrees with observed fallout during assembly.
However, if several more units fail within a few days, this conclusively proves a defective coupling
design, as the BW16C doesn't meet industry-accepted lifetime, as described below.

Issue
As used on Ghost Gunner, the BW16C bellows coupling is failing in as little as 250,000 revolutions,
which is just 12 hours. Industry typically expects 100 million to 1 billion cycles to failure if the cyclic
load is 50% or less than the ultimate fracture strength, regardless of how much less said cyclic load
stress is; below 50%, the failure rate levels off to a ceratin number of cycles, no matter how much less
force is applied. As an aside, if used at maximum specified rpm, these couplings would last only 14
minutes (using a linear calculation, which errs in the coupling's favor).
In regards to the BW16C bellow coupling, 'catastrophic failure' occurs the instant the torsional force
through the coupling is proportional to the remnant 'good' adhesive and adherent bond. In other words,
'catastrophic failure' occurs when there's so little remaining 'good' glue that which hasn't delaminated
- that the applied torque immediately causes said remaining 'good' glue to tear apart. Figures 6, 7, 8 &
9 highlight this point.

Figure 6: Typical glue-delamination failure, showing catastrophic failure after reaching minimum
surface contact. For simplicity, increased torsional rigidity as a function of radius is neglected
because the remnant 'good' glue at time of catastrophic failure is nearly pizza-shaped.

Figure 7: Same DUT as figure 6, cleaned with isopropyl alcohol. Note glue tearing that occurred
during catastrophic failure after cyclical loading separated glue from aluminum. Note glue is still
intact on stainless steel portion. Most failures occur at glue-aluminum interface (one failure occurred
at glue-SS interface). Thus, the root cause is cyclical stress to failure.

Figure 8: DUT failed catastrophically after 80 % glue-metal delamination. DUT is rated to 1600 mNm
continuous velocity Torque. Our theoretical calculation is 70.6 mNm, and the empirical failure is at
320 mNm. That is the same ballpark. Verifies coupling is used within torsional specifications.

Figure 9: Another failed DUT with similar remnant 'good' glue at instant DUT catastrophically failed.
Figures 6 through 9 verify the DUT is well below specified torsional limits as used in Ghost Gunner;
when only just more than 20% of original glue interface is still intact, our DUT has not failed. Thus,
we're using the DUT at a MINIMUM 5 times below its initial ultimate torsional failure limit. Our
calculation is that we're actually using the coupling at just 4.4% of its design limit (i.e. 23 times less
than maximum specification).
Note that once the test fails, if the coupling isn't removed in a matter of minutes, the spinning
aluminum half will grind away the remnant glue. The first picture showing the remnant glue was
caught very quickly, whereas the one directly above ran for a while. The other 3 failures to date ran for
several hours (overnight) before they were noted as broken, and thus there is no remnant glue... it all
got ground away.

Conclusion
The BW16C bellows coupling's glue-metal interface is defective by design, since delamination occurs
well before the industry accepted lifetime interval, even when the coupling is unloaded. It's important
to note that the entire reason a coupling is used is to prevent rotational lockup or premature wear due to
slight axial misalignments. Thus, it is not acceptable to conclude that the DUT failures are due to slight
misalignment during installation. Except for the intentional misalignment introduced during initial
testing, all testing occurred with generally acceptable alignment practices.
The above data nearly certainly shows that the glue-metal boundary delaminates no matter how little
torsional force is applied through the BW16C. Thus, slowing the acceleration or velocity profile won't
appreciably increase Ghost Gunner's service life, particularly since Ghost Gunner uses just 4.4% of the
BW16C's specified limits.

Supporting Evidence
A separate test mechanically crashed a shuttle into a hard stop, thus 'instantly' increasing the
acceleration (i.e. 'jerk'), and then continuing to run the crashed shuttle for one full revolution, thus
causing stepper motor to skip steps. This test massively exceeded DUT's specifications, yet failure
didn't occur for a grueling 45 minutes, which was 1625 iterations (1.66 second period between rams).
As with previous hard-acceleration testing, the failure occurred entirely due to fatigue within the
stainless steel bellows. The thin glue boundary withstood thousands of over-limit torsional stress
events without failure. Note that the time before failure exceeds expectations; the test results are good.
This test supports the theory that the fracture mechanics between the metal and glue boundary is largely
unrelated to the applied torsional energy, but highly related to the radial stress intensity caused as the
bellows coupling absorbs slight axial misalignment throughout each revolution. The glue isn't failing
during rapid acceleration/jerk because the metal which actually absorbs this crash energy is failing
first. Assuming you could weld the bellows back to together each time it failed, the glue would
eventually fail at precisely the same number of completed cycles. The peak radial intensity as the
coupling overcomes shaft misalignment is the same no matter how slow the coupling is rotated.
Another test was performed to immediately overtorque a bellows coupling to failure:

Note the two vice grips required to prevent the axial threaded shaft from slipping! The bellows
coupling is secured by the fixture such that nearly all force is torsional. Axial strain and angle-shearing
are minimized because each coupling mount axis is held stationary by the radially-affixed jig. Torque
is applied by rotating pliers.

Resultant failure, noting brittle fracture, as expected during overtorque event.

Comparing low cycle stress fatigue to eventual catastrophic failure (left, when remnant 'good' bond's
surface area is less than critical torque failure point) to immediate brittle failure (right, due to exceeding
maximum specified torque).
It is also noted that the glue behaves differently between first and second received batches. The glue is
likely the same binary mixture, but mixed in different proportion, as the old batch is visibly more pink,
much more brittle, delaminates more readily and is less resiliant to plastic deformation. Probably
originally batch binary not mixed in proper proportions, nut note the new couplings still have
delamination issues.

Second coupling batch's glue is more resiliant than first (first batch shown). Glue delamination on ID
at aluminum surface, but actual failure on this unit was between glue and SS, which delaminated
completely to catastrophic failure before the aluminum side did. This unit failed in less than 24 hours.

Crack Propagation in glue, probably due to manufacturing issue: stainless steel compressed while glue
was drying. Crack has progressed due to cycling loading, as shown in next photo.

Same crack as above, but now spreading into glue interface. Highlights manufacturing defect that
causes point dislocation. Also highlights this particular adhesive's crack propagation properties.

Highlighting manufacturing defect: glue applied insufficiently, introducing failure points. Other
failures include too littl glue, which delaminates more readily than when applied thickly.

Recommendations
-use an adhesive that can better withstand low stress cyclical fatigue.
-texture the mating aluminum and stainless steel material before applying adhesive, to increase mating
surface area, decrease plane separation propagation
-train assemblers how to better apply glue
-Move cut in aluminum used to secure coupling to mating shaft away from glued area. Point
dislocation that helps initiate glue separation around outer diameter (where torsion is highest).

Questions
The supplier was asked the following questions, but no reply received to date:
-How are the BW16C specifications determined?
-Have other customers reported glue-breakage failures?
-What type of glue are you using? Looks like a two part semi-rigid epoxy.
-How is the glue applied during manufacturing?
-Are the parts cleaned with acetone/alcohol/etc prior to glueing?
-Do you manufacture bellows couplings that aren't glued together?
-What questions do you have for me regarding my test methodology?

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