A virtual tool for wear simulation of standard and non-standard spur gears

Abstract

There is an industrial demand for the increased performance of mechanical power transmission devices. This need in high performance is driven by high load capacity, high endurance, low cost, long life, and high speed. New designs and modifications in gears have been investigated to obtain high load carrying capacity and increased life with less volume and weight. Tooth wear is one of the major failure modes in gears. Although there are different classifications of wear mechanisms, wear on gears can be simply classified as mild wear, pitting, and severe wear, depending on the wear rate. These types of wear may lead to power transmission losses, decreased efficiency, increased vibration and noise, and gear tooth failure. This paper deals with the simulation of wear for standard and non-standard gears using an analytical approach. A numerical model for wear prediction of gear pair is developed. A wear model based on Archard's equation is employed to predict wear depth. A MATLAB-based virtual tool is developed to analyze wear behavior of standard and non-standard spur gears with various gear parameters. In this paper, this virtual tool is introduced by using many numerical examples. Copyright © 2012 by ASME.