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Home > Forums > Mechanical Engineers > Activities > Mechanical engineering other topics Forum

Shaft Key Material

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murphy12 (Mechanical)

18 Nov 03 12:53

I have a nonstandard keyway due to space constraints and I'm woried about compression. Is there any reason I can't stray away from standard keystock (1018 or 1045) and use something harder like 4140 Q&T?

MintJulep (Mechanical)

18 Nov 03 12:55

You run the risk of damaging the shaft in the event of an overload. Keys are intended to be sacrificial.

murphy12 (Mechanical)

18 Nov 03 13:25

Thanks. I though that was the reason, but I was wondering if there were any other reasons.

ornerynorsk (Industrial)

18 Nov 03 14:02

There is no reason that you can't use a harder material, I've used hardened keys in the past with much success. Just keep in mind what mintjulep said, but you almost always have some repair considerations when a key shears, regardless of material.

MintJulep (Mechanical)

18 Nov 03 20:42

murph,

These types of things work pretty well if you have the space.

http://www.fennerindustrial.com/products/trantorque_ind...

savis (Mechanical)

19 Nov 03 8:23

This is an interesting question. However, you should be careful to consider what the industrial mechanic will replace this key with if they have a failure of some type. We recently had some issues with keys fretting and found out that our stock room was stocking 6x6 keystock material incorrectly (using 6x6 square stock c-1018. The tolerances are greater +0/-0.078, whereas keystock is +0-0.030.

Savis

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