117 ELEMENTS 11 e causes of spur gear tooth breakage is the unbalanced load on one end of “preakage ig the unbalanced load on one end of the tooth that results in higher stress he load is evenly distributed. To minimize this problem, the face width than when tl ny? should not be greater than the thickness of the tooth. In the absence of test values, the following can be a guide. A. 2.5 Pc