Guides

How to use Axomek, from your first shaft to gearboxes, bolted joints and ball screws, and the standards and theory behind every result. The same guides are in the app (F1).

Getting started

What Axomek does, a first project, the screen, units, checks, privacy, and the command line for AI agents.

What Axomek does The machine elements the app calculates, how they work together in one project, and where the results come from.
A tour of the screen The top bar, the module navigation, the inspector, the drawing, the results and the tools around them.
Your first project in 10 minutes Build a shaft on two supports, load it, set limits, add two bearings and save the project with its report.
Units and conventions The units the app shows and stores, the shaft's axes, the signs of forces and moments, and how positions are measured.
Reading checks and safeties What a check compares, how the banner and its colours read, what a safety factor means and what to do when a check fails.
Privacy choices What feature statistics and usability replays collect when you allow them, what they never collect, and how to change your choice or be asked again.
Keyboard shortcuts Every keyboard shortcut of the app: project, palette, editing on the drawing, views and dialogs.
The command line and AI agents The axm command line, how AI agents use it, and how the desktop app follows their changes live.
Project files across versions Older project files always open; files saved by a newer Axomek open read-only, so nothing in them is lost.
Your projects The Projects screen: recent files, indexed folders and cloud projects in one list, searched by what is in them, previewed in 3D and compared; switching projects (Ctrl+P), new projects, your own templates, windows; earlier saves and the Trash.
Using the help Where help is in the app, how to search it and what the (i) beside a field tells you.

Tutorials

Worked examples, step by step, each starting from an example you can open in the app.

A simple shaft on two bearings Rebuild the Simple shaft example from a blank project, fix its failing deflection check with a stepped shaft, and rate its two bearings.
Gearbox intermediate shaft Build a five-section intermediate shaft with a gear and a pinion loading it in both planes, a ball and a roller bearing, and stiffen it until every check passes.
Single-stage gearbox Build two shafts, put four bearings on them and couple them with a helical gear pair whose tooth forces load both shafts.
Spur gear pair Rate a case-hardened 20/60 spur pair after ISO 6336, load it harder, restore its pitting safety with a wider face and add a scuffing check.
Bolted bracket Rate one bolt of a bracket after VDI 2230, raise its shear load until it slips, and compare three ways to fix it.
Shrink-fit hub Check a Ø50 H7/s6 hub on a shaft: interference, contact pressure, transmissible torque and shrink temperature, then make it carry more torque and run faster.
Ball screw lift Size the ball screw of a vertical lift on a single nut without preload: turn masses into a load spectrum, read life, static safety, critical speed, buckling and torque, then see what a preload, a hanging screw and a free end would change.
Drive shaft with gear and coupling Read a gearbox output shaft as drawn: steps, keyways and grooves after DIN 743, a locating ball and a floating roller bearing over a three-case duty cycle, the keys and the gear's press fit, and find the check with the least margin.
Two-stage gearbox in the assembly view Open the two-stage helical gearbox, look round it in 3D, read its colours, turn a stage round its shaft and see what a too narrow gear does to the checks.
Building a report Turn a project into a report you can hand on: choose and order its sections, add a report number, a revision and sign-off, show what changed since the last revision, and save it as PDF or Word.
Comparing two designs Make a variant of the two-stage gearbox and compare it with the original, in the Projects screen and with axm diff: the inputs that differ, the checks that flipped and the results that moved.
Checking designs in CI Keep project files under version control and let a build pipeline solve every one of them with axm check, failing when a check fails, with a GitHub Actions example that keeps the access key in the repository's secrets.

Modules

Each module: what it is for, its inputs, what it calculates and how to read the results.

Project overview The overview page sums up the open project: the assembly in 3D, the checks closest to their limits with suggested fixes, what changed since the last save, every component's utilisation, the power flow of a gearbox, the duty cycle, the warnings, the parts list and the totals.
Assembly in 3D The whole project in one 3D view: every shaft where its gear pairs and drives put it, the gears in mesh, the bearings at their supports and the housing walls, coloured by their checks.
Shaft Build a stepped shaft from sections, place supports and loads, and read its deflection, bending moment, stress, support loads and tilt.
Shaft strength (DIN 743 and FKM) Fatigue and static safety of the shaft at shoulders, notches and its weakest plain sections, after DIN 743 or the FKM guideline.
Critical speeds and vibration Bending critical speeds and mode shapes, gyroscopic whirl and the Campbell diagram, unbalance response, and torsional and axial modes of the shaft.
Bearings Rolling bearings on their own or on a shaft support: load distribution, contact stress, ISO 281 rating life, static safety, lubricant film, friction, thermal speeds and stiffness.
Housings (seat stiffness) How stiff a bearing seat is in a housing wall, from a plane-stress plate, a 3D solid with hub and ribs, or an imported FE mesh or reduced matrix, and how that stiffness acts on the shaft.
Gear pairs Rate external and internal spur and helical gear pairs by ISO 6336: geometry, load factors, pitting and tooth root safety, scuffing, load spectra, flank modifications and loaded tooth contact, and the mesh forces on a gearbox's shafts.
Planetary sets Rate a simple planetary stage of sun, planets and ring by ISO 6336 per mesh: ratio, load sharing, planet speed and pin load, assembly and neighbour checks, and the face load factor from a deforming carrier.
Bevel pairs Rate straight, skew, spiral and Zerol bevel gears without hypoid offset by ISO 10300-1 and -2: cone geometry, shaft forces, virtual cylindrical gears, load factors, pitting and tooth root safety.
Worm pairs Rate a cylindrical worm drive with a steel worm and a bronze or cast iron wheel by DIN 3996 method C: efficiency and losses, wear, pitting, root safety of the worn tooth, worm deflection and oil temperature.
Plastic gears Rate cylindrical gears of POM, PA66, PA66 GF30 or PEEK by VDI 2736: flank and root temperatures from the heat balance, root and flank safety with the strength at temperature, wear and tooth tip deformation.
Fits and press fits ISO 286 limit deviations and clearances for a hole and shaft pair, and the elastic press fit of a hub on a shaft after DIN 7190-1: pressure, transmissible torque, stresses and shrink temperature.
Keys and splines Parallel keys after DIN 6892 with DIN 6885-1 key sizes, and involute splines after DIN 5480 and ISO 4156: flank pressure on shaft, hub and key, tooth shear and torque capacity.
Bolted joints Single-bolt joints after VDI 2230-1:2015, steps R0 to R13: preload and tightening torque, load factor, embedding, and safeties against yield, fatigue, surface pressure, slipping and shearing.
Weld groups Fillet, full- and partial-penetration butt weld groups in one face plane after EN 1993-1-8, with throat stresses by the directional or simplified method and fatigue over a load spectrum after EN 1993-1-9.
Belt and chain drives Couple two shafts with a V-belt, flat belt, timing belt or roller chain: strand tensions, pretension and slip, the shaft load and its direction, and the torque on both shafts.
Electric motors (rotor magnetic pull) The rotor of an electric machine on its shaft: unbalanced magnetic pull as a negative spring, its effect on bearing loads, deflection and critical speeds, and the air-gap and stability checks.
Linear guides Profile rail guides after ISO 14728: the table load shared over the carriages, equivalent loads with moments, rating life in km and hours, and static safety.
Ball screws Ball screws after ISO 3408-5 and ISO 3408-4: rating life over a load spectrum with nut preload, static safety, critical speed, buckling, d·n, efficiency and torque, and an optional ball-by-ball model of the nut.
Helical springs Cylindrical helical compression, extension and torsion springs of round wire after EN 13906: rate, forces, stresses, solid length, buckling, hook stresses, initial tension and fatigue.
Hertzian contact Two bodies pressed together: the contact ellipse or line, the pressure, the approach and stiffness, and the stresses below the surface, with live sliders, stress maps and a 3D view.
Reports and export The calculation report: its pages as they print, the parts and modules it contains, its look and header, PDF and print; and export the shaft as STEP or DXF and gears as STEP, from the app or the command line.

Standards and theory

The standards and the theory behind the results: what each method assumes and where it stops.

Units and number entry The base units the engine works in, the metric and US customary display, the units you can type into a field, what always stays metric, and the unit rules of the axm command line.
Rating life (ISO 281) Basic and modified rating life of rolling bearings after ISO 281:2007: load ratings, the reliability factor a1, the life modification factor aISO with κ, eC and Cu, the system life, and how the app applies them.
Static load rating and static safety The basic static load rating C0 and the static safety s0 of rolling bearings after ISO 76:2006, and how the app derives both from Hertz contact at the actual groove radii.
Equivalent bearing load The dynamic equivalent load P of ISO 281 with X, Y and e, why the app uses the ISO/TS 16281 reference load from the element loads instead, and how load cases combine into one life by the Palmgren–Miner rule.
Hertz contact and subsurface stress Point and line contact after Hertz, the contact ellipse, curvature sum and maximum pressure, the shear stresses below the surface, the case depth rule, and the app's maxShearStress, maxShearDepth and suggestedCaseDepth.
Internal load distribution (ISO/TS 16281) How the app shares a bearing's load among its rolling elements after ISO/TS 16281: load–deflection laws, clearance and load zone, contact angle change, tilt, roller laminae and crowning, the reference load and life, and why the groove radii matter.
Lubrication and viscosity Viscosity at operating temperature (Walther, ASTM D341), the rated viscosity ν1 and κ of ISO 281, elastohydrodynamic film thickness with inlet heating and starvation, the film parameter λ, and the grease relubrication interval as the app computes them.
Bearing friction and thermal speeds Bearing friction torque by Palmgren (M0 + M1) and by the four-component model, seal torque and power loss, the heat balance, the thermal reference speed of DIN ISO 15312, the thermally permissible speed of DIN 732, and the minimum load rules.
Shaft strength: DIN 743 and FKM How the fatigue and static safety of a shaft is assessed at shoulders, notches and plain sections after DIN 743:2012 or the FKM guideline (7th edition), and how the app applies both methods.
Deflection, critical speeds and whirl The Timoshenko beam model behind the shaft solution, deflection and tilt limits, bending critical speeds, gyroscopic forward and backward whirl, the Campbell diagram, unbalance response, torsional and axial modes and the negative stiffness of magnetic pull.
Fits: ISO 286 and press fits (DIN 7190) ISO 286 tolerance grades and fundamental deviations, clearance, transition and interference fits, the elastic press fit of DIN 7190-1 by thick-walled cylinder theory, and how bearing seat fits change the operating clearance.
Gear rating (ISO 6336) The load factors, the contact stress and tooth root stress of ISO 6336 method B, their permissible values and safeties, the 2019 and 2006 editions, load spectra by ISO 6336-6, and what the rating does not cover.
Gear scuffing (flash and integral temperature) Why gear flanks scuff, the flash temperature method of ISO/TS 6336-20:2022 and the integral temperature method of ISO/TR 13989-2:2000, the bulk temperature, the safeties SB and SintS and the minima the app uses.
Bolted joints (VDI 2230) The systematic calculation of a highly stressed single-bolt joint after VDI 2230 Part 1 (2015): the steps R0 to R13, resiliences and load factor, preload losses, tightening, the stress checks, slip, thread engagement, temperature and eccentric loading.