A number of engineering components have recently been made using metal matrix composite (MMC) materials, due to their overwhelming advantages, such as light weight high strength, higher dimensional stability and minimal attack by environment, when compared with polymer-based composite materials, even though the cost of MMCs are very high. Power transmission gears are one such area able to make use of MMC materials. Here an attempt is made to study and compare the performance of gears made of MMC materials with that of conventional steel material gears. It may be concluded from this study that MMC materials are highly suitable for making gears that are to transmit even fairly large power. © 1993.