Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jnlabr/ymssp

Transient meshing performance of gears with different modication coefcients and helical angles using explicit dynamic FEA
Yumei Hu a, Yimin Shao a,n, Zaigang Chen a, Ming J. Zuo b
a b

State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmission, Chongqing University, China Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Alberta, Canada

a r t i c l e in fo
Article history: Received 1 September 2008 Received in revised form 1 December 2010 Accepted 4 December 2010 Available online 13 December 2010 Keywords: Transient performance Structural parameter Modication coefcient Helical angle Explicit dynamic FEA

abstract
The gearbox, as the main part of power transmission of many mechanical systems, plays a critical role for the performance of the system. The transient meshing performance of the gears is dependent on their structural parameters like modication coefcient and helical angle among others. In this paper, the effects of modication coefcients and helical angles on the transient meshing performance of the gears are investigated using the method of explicit dynamic nite element analysis (FEA) in an energy point of view. The relationships between the transient meshing performance and modication coefcient or helical angle of gears are obtained by explicit dynamic simulation. The simulation results demonstrate that explicit dynamic FEA can be used for choosing these structural parameters in the design and manufacture of gears to enhance their transient meshing performance. & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Gearbox is a critical part of a power transmission system. It plays the role of providing the needed torque and rotational speed. Its performance directly determines the performance of the power transmission system. Optimal design of the gearbox for enhancement of the reliability and safety of the power transmission system has been of interest to engineers and researchers for decades. There usually are manufacturing errors in gears and assembly errors when mounting gears in a gearbox. When a gearbox is being used, gear teeth experience deformation under load. These manufacturing errors and tooth deformation destroy the theoretical meshing conditions and cause the gearboxs transmission ratio to uctuate. The consequences of such uctuation include increased vibration, shock and noise of the gearbox, increased dynamic meshing force on the gear teeth, and decreased transmission accuracy. Analysis of the dynamic performance of a pair of meshing gears looks into such dynamic changes. From such analyses, better designs of gears can be produced. Different from traditional gear design methods and the static nite element analysis (FEA) method, dynamic performance analysis can provide more information on gears meshing, such as displacement, velocity, acceleration, stress, and strain of the gear pair at any point of time and at any point on a gear tooth. Much work has been reported on the study of dynamic and transient performance analysis of gearboxes. Taking the rigidity of the connection between gears and shafts into account, Wang et al. [1] simulated the dynamic performance of a gear system using FEA and a new element type. Litvin et al. [2] employed asymmetric spur gears (different

Corresponding author. E-mail address: ymshao@cqu.edu.cn (Y. Shao).

0888-3270/$ - see front matter & 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ymssp.2010.12.004

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

1787

pressure angles on working and non-working surfaces) to reduce contacting and bending stress. Bajer and Demkowicz [3] simulated the dynamic contact impact problem of a general rigid body. Shu et al. [4] employed an explicit time integral algorithm considering kinetic and static friction coefcients to analyze three-dimensional dynamic contact in a resisting medium. Lundvall et al. [5] dealt with the dynamic contact problem taking into account simultaneously prole modication and ank errors. Considering the effects of the changing gear stiffness, continuous loading and unloading of gears, friction between gear teeth, and damping and stiffness of bearings, Vedmar and Andersson calculated the dynamic gear tooth force and bearing forces, and analyzed the gears transient performance at different rotational speeds when the bearings were treated as rigid and non-rigid [6]. Ibrahimbegovic et al. [7] used an explicitimplicit time integral algorithm to analyze the nonlinear dynamic performance of a multi-body. Lin and Kuang [8], considering the effects of meshing stiffness, damping ratio, load distribution, tooth prole, and temperature, applied a new algorithm to simulate the mutual reaction between dynamic contact loads and wear on surfaces of gear teeth. Ambarisha and Parker [9] used a lumped-parameter model and a nite element model, considering the effects of excitation due to meshing stiffness change, angular contact, and gear tooth contact loss, to conduct nonlinear dynamic analysis for planetary spur gears. Nonlinear vibration analysis of spur gears with machining errors was done by Bonori and Pellicano [10] using a classical model with a single degree of freedom, time-varying stiffness, and backlash. But they did not consider the effects of gear parameters such as modication coefcient, helical angle, and prole modication. Parker et al. [11,12] did a series of studies on the dynamic behaviors of gear systems. The dynamic responses of a planetary gear system with a semi-analytical nite element formulation that admits precise representation of the tooth geometry and contact forces was studied and the dynamic response of spur gear pair using a nite element/contact mechanics model was investigated, and comparisons were made between the results and those of the experiments. The dynamic transmission errors and contact forces were mainly concerned. Liu and Parker [13] studied the effects of tooth prole modication on multi-mesh gear-set vibration with considering the dynamic load distribution between the individual gear teeth and the inuence of variable mesh stiffness, prole modications, and contact loss. They also examined the nonlinear, parametrically excited dynamics of idler gearsets and asymptotic perturbation analysis was discussed in their paper [14]. In addition, they studied the inuences of tooth friction on parametric instabilities and the dynamic response of a single-mesh gear pair. An iterative integration method and a numerical method were used and the impacts of friction coefcient, bending effect, contact ratio, and modal damping on the stability boundaries were revealed in their paper [15]. Alfredsson et al. [16] studied the role of a single surface asperity in rolling contact fatigue with the FEA approach and their simulation results validated by experiments have the same order of magnitude as ours in this paper. The reported studies reviewed above can be divided into three categoriesthe rst one is on the effects of different external loading cases on the dynamic behavior of the gear system, the second is on the effects of gear parameters on the dynamic behavior of the gear system, and the last one is a combination of the rst two categories. To obtain the solution on the dynamic behavior of a gear system with the implicit static algorithm, one needs to recalculate a large-scale nonlinear stiffness matrix at every time step and this process needs to be repeated many times for the algorithm to converge. This algorithm requires a large memory space and takes a long CPU time to execute. On the other hand, the explicit dynamic nite element approach has the disadvantages that it is limited by the stability rule Courant, its time step is very small, and the zero energy mode, also called the hourglass deformation mode, may be produced sometimes with the single point Gauss integral. The zero energy mode problem can be avoided through proper control and this has been implemented in ANSYS. The explicit dynamic nite element approach does not have the disadvantages of the implicit static nite element approach mentioned above and is capable of dealing with large-scale contact problems efciently. On the effects of gear parameters on the dynamic performance of the gear system, few studied the transient performance of the gear meshing process with the dynamic explicit nite element approach. The effects of gear parameters such as helical angle and modication coefcient on the transient performance of a gear system have not been reported in the literature. Preliminary studies on the relationships among the modication coefcient, helical angle, and effective stress have been reported in Ref. [17]. There is a need to study the effects of modication coefcient and helical angle on the transient meshing performance of a gear system. For the way to exhibit our results, analysis in frequency domain can reect a lot of micro specic information of gear systems, but the statistic parameters in the time domain can also express the our concern results clearly and more directly. The dynamic performances in this paper are described at a macro energy point of view. In this paper, we provide a complete three-dimensional nite element analysis model of gear meshing based on our earlier work [17]. The transient performance of gears with different modication coefcients and helical angles is investigated with the explicit dynamic nite element approach. For the corner contact problem, its effects on the dynamic performances of gears are negligible by prole modication (see Ref. [13]). Prole modication of this model utilized here has incorporated. And the vibrations of the gears in this paper are induced by the interactive action in the meshing process. They are not separate from each other, and only the inner parametric excitations are investigated here without considering the outside parametric excitation like motors, loads, bearings, etc., which will be studied in the later work. Choosing proper parameters like modication coefcient and helical angle based on the dynamic performance of the gear system is studied in this paper. The simulation results can predict the dynamic performance and can be used as guidelines in the gear design phase. Vibration is just one of the gear dynamic performances, and so is the sound. The coupling of vibration and sound in the gear system will be studied in future work and is out of the scope of this paper.

1788

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

The denitions of some terminologies to be used in this paper are rst provided below. (1) Modication coefcient (MC) x dd0 m 1

where x is the modication coefcient (MC), m is the modulus, d0 represents the radius of the reference circle of a standard gear, and d refers to the distance between the centerlines of the cutter and the gear in the process of machining. (2) A generalized vibration energy (VE) is used and dened as follows: VE
n X i1

x2 i

where VE represents the vibration energy, xi is the extracted data of acceleration, and n is the number of data points. This represents energy for a xed sampling frequency and could be scaled in energy units by multiplication by the sampling interval (division by the sampling frequency). (3) Crest factor max9xi 9 C q P 2 1=n n i 1 xi where C refers to the crest factor value, xi is the extracted data of acceleration, and n is the number of data points. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the explicit dynamic algorithm for ease of references in later sections. Section 3 describes the establishment of the nite element model of helical gears. The effects of the modication coefcient and the helical angle on the transient meshing performance of gears are reported in Sections 4 and 5, respectively. Section 6 provides conclusions. 2. Explicit dynamic algorithm [1,8] In dynamic nite element analysis, the system equation can be written as t C a _ t Kat Q t Ma 4 3

t , a _ t , and a(t) are the node acceleration, node velocity, and node displacement vectors, respectively, and M, C, where a and K are the mass matrix, damping matrix and stiffness matrix of the system, respectively. They are integrated by their individual matrixes or vectors of elements of the FEA model. Q(t) denotes the external force vector acting at some nodes of the FEA model and in this paper, it refers to the applied torque on the two ends of the shaft where the slave gear is mounted on. The applied torque form is as shown in Fig. 4. The main dynamic excitation source in this paper is the time-varying meshing stiffness because the gear teeth and body as well as shaft are exible and the meshing position changes with time periodically. Compared with static analysis, the inertia force and the damping force are added in the equilibrium equations in dynamic analysis, and the mass matrix and the damping matrix are introduced. As a result, the equations to be solved are ordinary differential equations. In ANSYS/LS-DYNA, the center difference integral method is used to deal with the equations of motion. With this center difference method, the acceleration and the velocity can be expressed as functions of the displacement t a _t a 1

Dt 2

atDt 2at at Dt

5 6

1 atDt at Dt 2Dt

Putting Eqs. (5) and (6) in Eq. (4), the following recursive formula for each discrete time point can be obtained:       1 1 2 1 1 C a C a t Dt M Q K M a M t t t D t 2Dt 2Dt Dt2 Dt 2 Dt2

Given the initial condition and a certain way to start the calculation process, the displacement at each discrete time point can be calculated with Eq. (7). We need to pay special attention to ensure that the center difference method is stable, i.e. when solving the problem, the time step Dt must be smaller than some critical value determined by the equations characteristics of the problem. The condition to stabilize the center difference method is

Dt r Dtcr

Tn

where Tn is the smallest natural vibration period of the nite element system. It can be estimated by the following equation: q Dtcr lmin = Er=1bu2 9 where lmin is the shortest element length, r is the material density, u is the Poisson ratio, and E is Youngs modulus of the material.

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

1789

3. Finite element models of helical gears To study the meshing performance of a pair of meshing gears, we need to construct the nite element models of the gears. First, we need to have a three-dimensional geometry model of the gear system (see Fig. 1). We will use the following geometric parameters of the gears [17]. The master gear has 26 teeth and the slave gear 40 teeth. The master tooth width is 19.7 mm and the slave tooth width 21.5 mm. The master modication coefcient (MC) is 0.12 and the slave MC 0.245. The normal modulus is 2, the pressure angle 161, the central distance 79.4 mm, and the helix angle on the reference circle b =331. The gear system to be studied includes two pairs of gears in meshing and two pairs of rigid support (the bearings). The material of both gears is 20CrMnTi, which is linear elastic and its Youngs modulus E = 2.07 105 MPa, and Poisson ratio Z = 0.3. In order to get accurate analysis results, the grids of the nite elements ought to be ne enough. However, too many nite elements will consume too much memory space and CPU time. Since the gear teeth usually experience higher stress, we have used smaller elements for the gear teeth than those for other parts of the gear system. All elements have the shapes of a pentahedron or hexahedron. The total number of elements is 108 252 and the total number of nodes is 232 943. The rigid supports are approximated by 546 quadrangle shell elements. The nodes of these rigid supports are shared with the solid elements at the two ends of each gear shaft. The complete nite element model is shown in Fig. 2. The used boundary conditions are as follows. The angular velocity prole of the master gear shaft as a function of time is shown in Fig. 3. The time-varying torque applied on the output gear shaft is shown in Fig. 4. Through modal analysis by FEA, the natural frequencies are obtained. The results show that the rotational and mesh frequencies and their harmonics do not

Fig. 1. Geometrical model of gear system.

Fig. 2. Finite element model of gear system.

1790

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

Fig. 3. Plot of angular velocity.

Fig. 4. Load curve of torque.

coincide with the natural frequencies of the gear system; namely it cannot excite the resonant vibrations. As a result, the effect of resonant vibration can be ignored in this paper. 4. Effects of modication coefcient (MC) on gear transient meshing performance The helical angle b of the gear pair is 331. The pressure angle, the central distance between the two shafts, and the helix angle are assumed to be constant in the following discussions. We will consider three possible designs of the gear pair. The only differences among these three designs are the modication coefcients of the gears. The rst design has a modication coefcient of 0.1 for the master gear and 0.265 for the slave gear. The second design has a modication coefcient of 0.12 for the master and 0.245 for the slave. The third design has a modication coefcient of 0.14 for the master and 0.225 for the slave. We note that the modication coefcient changes from small to large for the master gear and from large to small for the slave gear in the three designs. The thicknesses of gear teeth varies with the modication coefcient; as a result, the stiffness is changed accordingly, that is to say the stiffness of gear teeth is affected by the modication coefcient. Thus, the effect of the modication coefcient on vibration needs to be studied. We will investigate the effects of the modication coefcients on stress and dynamic performance of the meshing pair of gears in Sections 4.1 and 4.2. 4.1. Effect of MC on stress of element at tooth root The stress of the element at the root of a gear tooth as a function of time is shown in Fig. 5 for each of the three designs. Here, MCm is the modication coefcient of the master gear and MCs is that of the slave gear. In this gure, the abscissa axis

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

1791

Fig. 5. Element stress of teeth root of three gear pairs: (a1) master gear, MCm = 0.1, MCs =0.265; (a2) slave gear, MCm = 0.1, MCs = 0.265; (b1) master gear, MCm = 0.12, MCs =0.245; (b2) slave gear, MCm = 0.12, MCs = 0.245; (c1) master gear, MCm = 0.14, MCs = 0.225; and (c2) slave gear, MCm = 0.14, MCs =0.225.

Fig. 6. Curve of tooth root stress peak versus modication coefcient of gears.

1792

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

refers to time and the vertical axis the amplitude of the effective stress experienced by the element at the tooth root. The stress data in the time domain are extracted from one element at the root of a xed tooth of mater or slave gear. The time interval between the two peaks for the master gear is approximately 0.025 s and this is the rotating period of the master gear, which depends on the rotational speed. On the other hand, the rotation period of the slave gear is 0.0387 s. From Fig. 5, we also observe that the peak values of the element stress for the master gear decrease as the modication coefcient of the master gear increases (from (a1) to (c1)). On the other hand, the peak values of the element stress of the slave gear uctuate around 200 MPa. The statistical relationship between tooth root stress and MC (that of the master gear increases from 0.1 to 0.14 and of the slave gear decreases from 0.265 to 0.225 in parallel) corresponding to Fig. 5 are shown in Fig. 6. Here, the peak values for the master gear are the averages of the two peaks shown in Fig. 5(a1c1), while for the slave gear the peak value is the maximum in Fig. 5(a2c2). For the master gear, the peak value decreases consistently as the MC of the master gear increases, while for the slave gear, the peak values of the effective stress increase with the decrease in the modication coefcient of the slave gear

Fig. 7. Angular acceleration of three gear pairs: (a1) master, MCm = 0.1, MCs = 0.265; (a2) slave, MCm =0.1, MCs =0.265; (b1) master, MCm = 0.12, MCs = 0.245, (b2) slave, MCm =0.12, MCs = 0.245, (c1) master, MCm = 0.14, MCs = 0.225; and (c2) slave, MCm = 0.14, MCs = 0.225.

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

1793

(equivalently with the increase in the MC of the master gear). Increasing the modication coefcient makes the gear tooth thicker, which decreases the stress in the tooth. But the simulation results here indicate that the stresses disobey the law. Since the rotational speed of the master gear is greater than that of the slave gear, we desire the stress level of the master gear to be lower than that of the slave gear in order for the two gears to have close service life in terms of usage hours. As shown in Fig. 6, the third design (i.e. MCm = 0.14 and MCs =0.225) has this desired feature. This shows that proper selection of the MC is important for gearbox design. 4.2. Effect of MC on dynamic performance Fig. 7 shows the generated vibration signals in terms of angular acceleration of the master gear and the slave gear in the time domain for the three selected modication coefcient pairs. The abscissa axis refers to the time and the vertical axis is the amplitude of angular acceleration. The angular acceleration curves of the master gear are shown in (a1c1) and those of the slave gear are shown in (a2c2). When the nodes from which the acceleration data are extracted are just in meshing, shock vibrations are generated and are clearly visible in Fig. 7. As shown in Fig. 7(a1c1), the amplitude of the shock vibration of the master gear rises as the

Fig. 8. Axial acceleration of three gear pairs: (a1) master, MCm =0.1, MCs = 0.265; (a2) slave, MCm = 0.1, MCs = 0.265; (b1) master, MCm =0.12, MCs = 0.245; (b2) slave, MCm = 0.12, MCs = 0.245; (c1) master, MCm = 0.14, MCs = 0.225; and (c2) slave, MCm = 0.14, MCs = 0.225.

1794

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

modication coefcient of the master gear increases (at the same time, that of the slave gear decreases). However, the shock vibration of the slave gear as shown in Fig. 7(a2c2) exhibits a reverse trend. We also examined the vibration in the axial direction. The axial acceleration curves are shown in Fig. 8. The abscissa axis refers to time and the vertical axis is the amplitude of the axial vibration acceleration with g (g = 9.8 m s 2) as its unit. The shock vibration shown in Fig. 8 is also produced when the nodes from which the acceleration data are extracted are just getting into the engagement zone. For the master gear (shown in Fig. 8(a1c1)), the peak values of the shock vibration appear to be the greatest in (b1) and the smallest in (c1). While for the slave gear the peak value in (a2) is the biggest and in (c2) is the smallest. The axial vibration trends of the gear pairs with different modication coefcients under the same load are different. This shows the impact of the modication coefcients. The statistical relationships between the angular and the axial vibration energy and the modication coefcients are displayed in Fig. 9. In this gure, the MC of the master gear (increasing from 0.1, 0.12, to 0.14) is shown at the bottom of each chart (MCm) and that of the slave gear decreasing from 0.265 and 0.245 to 0.225 is shown at the top (MCs), which means three gear pairs with different modication coefcients of (0.1, 0.265), (0.12, 0.245), and (0.14, 0.225) are selected in this paper, so are they in Fig. 10. Fig. 9(a) and (b) show the curves of VE of angular and axial acceleration versus MC, respectively, for both the master gear and the slave gear. The vibration trends are given in terms of the vibration energy and the crest factors in Fig. 9. Both the vibration energy of angular and axial accelerations of the slave gear decrease with the increase in MC of the master gear. But for angular acceleration of the master gear in Fig. 9(a), VE increases linearly with MC. VE of the axial acceleration for the master gear shown in Fig. 9(b) increases initially and then decreases after the pivotal point with a modication coefcient of 0.12. Relationships between the crest factors of angular and axial accelerations and the modication coefcients are exhibited in Fig. 10. In this gure, the MC of the master gear (increasing from 0.1, 0.12, to 0.14) is also shown at the bottom of each chart (MCm) and that of the slave gear decreasing from 0.265, 0.245 to 0.225 is displayed at the top (MCs). The curves of crest factors versus angular and axial accelerations are denoted in (a) and (b), respectively. For the crest factors of angular acceleration in

Fig. 9. Relationship of vibration energy versus MC: (a) VE of angular acceleration and (b) axial acceleration.

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

1795

Fig. 10. Relationship of crest factor versus MC: (a) crest factor of angular acceleration and (b) axial acceleration.

Table 1 Natural frequencies of pinion and gear by FEA method. Name MC Natural frequency (Hz) First Pinion 0.10 0.12 0.14 0.265 0.245 0.225 14572 14558 14553 8162.7 8161.0 8163.0 Second 14575 14559 14555 8162.8 8161.3 8163.6 Third 15179 15159 15136 13716 13714 13721 Fourth 15185 15163 15150 13720 13718 13724 Fifth 27841 27831 27819 14414 14412 14411

Gear

Fig. 10(a), a maximum value among the calculated results appears for the slave gear while a minimum value occurs for the master gear, i.e. for slave gear, there is an increasing trend of crest factor for MC between 0.1 and 0.12 and a decreasing trend for MC between 0.12 and 0.14, while a reverse trend happens to the master gear. For the axial accelerations in Fig. 10(b), the crest factor decreases over the whole range of variation of MC for the master gear. However, drastic and mild decreases in amplitudes correspond to the rst segment (MCm from 0.1 to 0.12) and the second segment (MCm from 0.12 to 0.14), respectively. Simultaneously, the crest factor of the slave gear keeps steady when MCm changes from 0.1 to 0.12 and the crest factor appears to be smallest with the MCm value of 0.14. Through modal analysis, the natural frequencies of the gears are shown in Table 1, which indicates that the effect of MC on the natural frequency is so little that it can be neglected. A spectrum of the angular acceleration extracted from the pinion (MCm =0.1 and MCs = 0.265) is plotted in Fig. 11. It can be seen from Fig. 11 that the excitations from rotational and meshing frequencies and their harmonics cannot produce resonant vibrations to the gear system.

1796

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

Fig. 11. Frequency spectrum of angular acceleration of pinion.

Through analyzing the gear pairs stress and dynamic response (Figs. 510), we have the following observations as the modication coefcient changes (that of master gear increases from 0.1, 0.12 to 0.14 and that of the slave gear decreases from 0.265, 0.245 to 0.225): 1) For the master gear, its element stress peaks at the tooth root and VE of axial acceleration increase initially and then decrease. However, the VE of angular acceleration representing the circumferential vibration level increases consistently. But for the indicator of crest factor, it keeps decreasing with the increase in MCm for the axial acceleration, while for the angular acceleration, a minimum crest factor appears when MCm of 0.12 and MCs of 0.245 are selected. 2) For the slave gear, although the circumferential and the axial vibration energies decrease, its element stress peak keeps growing. A minimum crest factor appears for both angular and axial accelerations when MCm of 0.14 and MCs of 0.225 are selected. As a result, it is not possible to simultaneously reduce element stress and vibration by changing the modication coefcient alone. Proper tradeoff between stress reduction and vibration reduction of the master and the slave gear is needed. How to achieve this tradeoff is beyond the scope of this paper and will be addressed in our future research. In summary, the relationships among the element stress at gear tooth root, the dynamic performance, and the modication coefcients have been presented in this section. They are useful as reference for choosing the modication coefcient in gear design and manufacturing. 5. Effects of helical angle on gear transient meshing performances Keeping the normal modulus and the number of teeth unchanged, changing the helical angle will indeed change the distance of centers of the two gears. In some cases, the distance of centers is required to be xed when the helical angle changes; the modication coefcient must then be adjusted to make the gear pair work normally. in this case, studying the dynamic performance of the gears can be achieved through the FEA method used in this paper. By this approach, the least vibration status could be found and the corresponding values of the modication coefcient and the helical angle can also be obtained. Keeping the modication coefcients at xed values, i.e. 0.12 for the master gear and 0.245 for the slave gear, we will report our investigation of the impact of the helical angle in this section. The impact of the helical angle on the transient meshing performance of the gear system is studied. The three helical angles considered are 32.71, 331, and 33.31. 5.1. Effect on element stress of gear tooth root The element stress at the gear tooth root corresponding to the three different helical angle values are shown in Fig. 12 for both the master and the slave gears. There are two peaks for the master gear and only one for the slave gear because the master gear has smaller number of teeth than the slave gear (this phenomenon and the interpretations are the same as Fig. 5). Fig. 12 shows that the stress magnitude of the master gear (a1c1) is greater than that of the slave gear (a2c2) for each value

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

1797

Fig. 12. Element stress of teeth root of three gear pairs: (a1) master gear, b = 32.71; (a2) slave gear, b = 32.71; (b1) master gear, b = 331; (b2) slave gear, b =331; (c1) master gear, b = 33.31; and (c2) slave gear, b = 33.31.

of the helical angle. For the master gear, the peak value when helical angle b = 32.71 is smaller than that of the other two helical angle values. When the helical angle is 331, the slave gear experiences the highest element stress. The statistical relationships between the element stress at the gear tooth root and the helical angle are shown in Fig. 13. The stress level of the master is greater than that of the slave gear. For the master gear, the peak value increases fast in the rst segment and slows down in the second segment separated at helical angle b =331. For the slave gear, the peak values increase initially and then decrease. These observations can be used as guidelines for choosing proper helical angle values in gear design and manufacturing. 5.2. Effect on dynamic performances Fig. 14 shows the angular vibration of the gear pair in time domain when the helical angle takes different values. A shock is produced when the node from which the acceleration data is extracted gets in meshing. The vibration trend is shown in (a1) for the master gear and in (c2) for the slave gear.

1798

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

Fig. 13. Curve of tooth root stress peak versus helical angles of gears.

Fig. 14. Angular acceleration of three gear pairs: (a1) master, b =32.71; (a2) slave, b = 32.71; (b1) master, b =331; (b2) slave, b =331; (c1) master, b =33.31; and (c2) slave, b = 33.31.

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

1799

The axial vibrations in the time domain are given in Fig. 15. As shown in the gure, the greatest shock values appear in (b1) and (c2) while the smallest in (c1) and (a2). The axial vibration magnitude apparently varies with the change in the helical angle. This shows that we can optimize the helical angle to achieve optimal vibration levels for the meshing gears. The relationships between the vibration energy and the helical angle corresponding to master and slave gears are shown in Fig. 16. The angular and axial vibrations are investigated and shown in (a) and (b), respectively. As shown in Fig. 16, for the master gears, the angular vibration energy becomes stronger for the smaller HA and the axial vibration energy reaches a pivotal point (maximum value) when the HA value of 331 is chosen. A completely different trend is observed for the slave gear, i.e. both angular and axial vibration energy of the slave gears continue to increase with the growth of HA. The relationships between the crest factor and the helical angle corresponding to master and slave gears are shown in Fig. 17. The crest factors of angular and axial vibrations are investigated and shown in(a) and (b) in Fig. 17, respectively. As shown in Fig. 17, for the master gears, the angular vibration energy reaches a pivotal point (minimum value) when the HA value of 331 is chosen. A drastic decrease occurred when the HA changes from 32.71 to 331. But the change in HA has little effect on the crest factor. But for the slave gear, a completely different trend is observed, i.e. both the crest factors of angular and axial vibration continue to increase linearly with the growth of HA. So, vibrations of both the master and the slave gear should be taken into account in order to get the optimum dynamic performance when choosing the helical angle values.

Fig. 15. Axial acceleration of three gear pairs: (a1) master, b = 32.71; (a2) slave, b =32.71; (b1) master, b = 331 (b2) slave, b = 331; (c1) master, b = 33.31; and (c2) slave, b = 33.31.

1800

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

Fig. 16. Relationship of vibration energy versus HA: (a) VE of angular acceleration and (b) axial acceleration.

The element stress curves and the dynamic response trends in the time domain as well as the statistical diagrams (Figs. 1217) show that a proper helical angle can improve the dynamic performance of the meshing gears. We are also interested in achieving a close service life of the master and the slave gears in terms of operating hours. In terms of vibration, bigger helical angles will bring in more severe vibration to the slave gear while smaller ones will make the circumferential vibration of the master gear stronger. To nd an optimal helical angle is important for improving the overall performance of the system and reducing its operating cost. In the process of choosing good helical angles, for example, if the axial vibration is the most concerned property, the helical angle to be chosen should be as small as possible according to Fig. 15. At the same time, the element stress at the gear tooth root and the angular vibrations should also be in the acceptable range. So the helical angle may have to be constrained to be bigger than some critical value. A tradeoff is necessary and a more accurate relationship between stress, vibration, and helical angle and nding additional interesting results will be studied in our future work. 6. Conclusions Through simulation with an explicit dynamic FEA approach, the relationships between transient meshing performance and the modication coefcient and the helical angle are investigated. The simulation results have shown that it is meaningful to use this method to study the transient performance of gears with different modication coefcients and different helical angles so that the cost of design and manufacturing of gears can be reduced greatly. The conclusions of this study are as follows: 1) The method using explicit dynamic FEA can be utilized to analyze the transient meshing performance of gear systems effectively.

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

1801

Fig. 17. Relationship of crest factor versus HA: (a) crest factor of angular acceleration and (b) axial acceleration.

2) The relationships between the dynamic performances (including element stress at root of gear tooth, VE, and crest factor) and the modication coefcients are obtained. They can be used as a reference for selection of the modication coefcient in gear designing and manufacturing. 3) The relationships between the dynamic performances (including element stress at root of gear tooth, VE, and crest factor) and the helical angles are reported. They offer very useful information for choosing a proper helical angle in optimal gear design.

Acknowledgement This research was nancially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under Contact nos. 50675232 and 51035008, the Key Project of Chinese Ministry of Education, the Key Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing under Contact no. 2007BA6021, China Opportunity Fund of the University of Alberta, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). References
[1] Y. Wang, W.J. Zhang, H.M.E. Cheung, A nite element approach to dynamic modeling of exible spatial compound bar gear systems, Mechanism and Machine Theory 36 (2001) 469487. [2] Faydor L. Litvin, Qiming Lian, Alexander L. Kapelevich, Asymmetric modied spur gear drives: reduction of noise, localization of contact, simulation of meshing and stress analysis, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering 188 (2000) 363390. [3] A. Bajer, L. Demkowicz, Dynamic contact/impact problems, energy conservation, and planetary gear trains, Computer Methods in Applied Mechanics and Engineering 191 (2002) 41594191. [4] Liu Shu, Liu Jingbo, Sun Jiaguang, Chen Yujian, A method for analyzing three-dimensional dynamic contact problems in visco-elastic media with kinetic and static friction, Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 23832394. [5] O. Lundvall1, N. Stromberg, A. Klarbring, A exible multi-body approach for frictional contact in spur gears, Journal of Sound and Vibration 278 (2004) 479499 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Division of Mechanics, SE-581 83 Linkoping, Sweden. [6] L. Vedmar, A. Andersson, A method to determine dynamic loads on spur gear teeth and on bearings, Journal of Sound and Vibration 267 (2003) 10651084.

1802

Y. Hu et al. / Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing 25 (2011) 17861802

[7] Adnan Ibrahimbegovic, Robert L. Taylor, H. Lim, Non-linear dynamics of exible multi-body systems, Computers and Structures 81 (2003) 11131132. [8] Ah-Der Lin, Jao-Hwa Kuang, Dynamic interaction between contact loads and tooth wear of engaged plastic gear pairs, International Journal of Mechanical Sciences 50 (2) (2008) 205213. [9] Vijaya Kumar Ambarisha, Robert G. Parker, Nonlinear dynamics of planetary gears using analytical and nite element models, Journal of Sound and Vibration 302 (2007) 577595. [10] Giorgio Bonori, Francesco Pellicano, Non-smooth dynamics of spur gears with manufacturing errors, Journal of Sound and Vibration 306 (2007) 271283. [11] Robert G. Parker, Vinayak Agashe, Sandeep M. Vijayakar, Dynamic response of a planetary gear system using a nite element/contact mechanics model, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design 122 (3) (2000) 304310. [12] R.G. Parker, S.M. Vijayakar, T. Imajo, Non-linear dynamic response of a spur gear pair: modelling and experimental comparisons, Journal of Sound and Vibration 237 (2000) 435455. [13] Gang Liu, Robert G. Parker, Dynamic modeling and analysis of tooth prole modication for multimesh gear vibration, ASME Journal of Mechanical Design 130 (2008) 121402-1121402-13. [14] Gang Liu, Robert G. Parker, Nonlinear dynamics of idler gear systems, Nonlinear Dynamics 53 (2008) 345367. [15] Gang Liu, Robert G. Parker, Impact of tooth friction and its bending effect on gear dynamics, Journal of Sound and Vibration 320 (2009) 10391063. [16] B. Alfredsson, J. Dahlberg, M. Olsson., The role of a single surface asperity in rolling contact fatigue, Wear 264 (2008) 757762. [17] Y.M. Hu, C.Q. Huang, Z.Q. Chang, Researching the inuence of modication coefcient and helix angle upon the engage performance of gear pair, in: Proceedings of the International Conference on Mechanical Transmissions, vols. 1 and 2, 2006, pp. 498501.