What characteristics make polymers advantageous for applicat

What characteristics make polymers advantageous for applications such as gears? What characteristics are drawbacks in such applications?

Solution

Plastics have lower coefficient of friction meaning they wear less even if lubricant is poor of nonexistent

Plastics are great vibration dampers and noise deadeners.

They would help reduce gear train noise in service.

Plastic gears are easier to fabricate and require less production processing.

Plastics are not advantageous for gears because they have lower stiffener than steels.

Especially at high temperatures, Plastics have lower strength than steels, which would mean an equally sized gear would be able to transfer nearly the same amount of load as steel gear.