Improved analytical method for gear body-induced deflections with tooth root crack considering structural coupling effect

There is no existing effective analytical method for calculating the mesh stiffness of spur gears with tooth root crack when the interactions between the neighboring teeth induced by gear body flexibility are considered, while this factor has been demonstrated to have a considerable effect on the mesh stiffness. In this paper, an improved method of spur gear mesh stiffness is proposed based on the theory of elastic mechanics for circular ring, which is capable of calculating the mesh stiffness with tooth root crack accurately. Then, the calculated gear body-induced stiffness results considering structural coupling effect with tooth root crack is validated by the finite element method. In addition, the effect of different hub hole radius and crack lengths on the stiffness caused by the structural coupling effect are investigated. The results indicate that the proposed analytical method is more accurate for spur gear mesh stiffness calculation with tooth root crack.

Automated summary

An improved method based on the theory of elastic mechanics for circular ring is proposed in this paper to accurately calculate the mesh stiffness of spur gears with tooth root crack. The calculated results are validated by the finite element method, and the effects of different parameters on the stiffness are investigated.