Goodrich Rome

104 Otis Street
Rome, NY 13441-4714
Phone: 315-838-1200
Fax: 315-838-1477

Commercial Coupling Superior Design & Design Philosophy

Goodrich Superior Design

Light weight/simple design
Best balance capability

Goodrich Couplings have three major parts: a flex unit and two adapters(flange or hub) which interfaces with the driver and load machinery. This simple design only requires two joints and therefore has the best balance repeatability of any coupling. Competing designs require at least four joints and therefore the eccentricity between parts (5 compared to Goodrich's 3) yields significant more imbalance when a unit is reassembled.

The Goodrich flex unit has contoured diaphragms located at each end of the spacer and is joined by electron beam (EB) welding. The majority of Goodrich Couplings are supplied with EB Welded Flex units. Goodrich has never had radial weld failure. Thorough NDT inspection is completed on each weld to ensure a quality seam.

Goodrich leads the industry in sound engineering practice in designing our couplings. Some examples follow:

Hardware is shrouded to ensure low windage.
Helicoils are only used on special designs.
Torque is not transmitted through our bolt threads.
No holes in flexure areas where bending takes place.
Wearing and fretting avoided – no loose or rubbing parts.

Design Philosophy

The contoured diaphragm that Goodrich has originated and refined over the last half century has been proven time and again by field conditions as well as in house testing and analysis. Every aerospace coupling is subjected to 10 million cycles in house at greater operating stresses than the unit will be subjected to in the field. FEA and strain gage testing have been completed for many different programs including the Frame 7E Mechanical Drive Load Diaphragm Couplings.

These methods have verified and validated Goodrich' proprietary computer program for stress analysis and margin evaluation used for our aerospace, marine and industrial products resulting in the industry's highest reliability and lowest direct operating costs. This analysis incorporates the loading conditions as boundary values in exactly the same fashion as Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Goodrich uses multiple differential equations which evaluate the diaphragm structure and completes a numerical integration to develop the stresses in the diaphragm profile.

Goodrich' computer-based analysis has simplified our engineering effort such that it only takes seconds to determine the stress levels based on customer requirements. The proprietary computer program sizes and completes a data sheet with all coupling characteristics in minutes such that the customer's quote has accurate engineering data provided. When ordering, this same data is generated into drawings, process and parts via our Computer Aided Design (CAD) and Computer Aided Manufacturing (CAM) Systems. Our new computer system releases and tracks each order from entry to shipment ensuring an on time delivery.

E-mail: info.rome@goodrich.com

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