Power density is a key factor in gear design. Increasing the power density enables engineers to use smaller gears for their applications which lead to smaller and lighter gear boxes. The benefit for example for the automotive industry is less moving load in the vehicles and therefor a reduction of fuel consumption and subsequently a reduction of CO2 emission. The limiting factor for the increase in power density of gears is the material strength in regard to the critical failure mode.

The development of a new, gas-carburized gear steel, necessitated by a customer-driven specification, has not only increased the power density in an existing gearbox design, but has done so without requiring any significant change to production processes or heat treatment equipment.