Regular Article 

Mesh stiffness modeling considering actual tooth profile geometry for a spur gear pair

¹ School of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610065, PR China
² State Key Laboratory of Mechanical Transmissions, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, PR China

^* e-mail: qh.zhou@foxmail.com

Received: 15 June 2017
Accepted: 3 May 2018

Abstract

Some tooth profile geometric features, such as root fillet area, flank modification and wear are of nonnegligible importance for gear mesh stiffness. However, due to complexity of analytical description, their influence on mesh stiffness was always ignored by existing research works. The present work derives analytical formulations for time-varying gear mesh stiffness by using parametric equations of flank profile. Tooth geometry formulas based upon a rack-type tool are derived following Litvin's vector approach. The root fillet area and tooth profile deviations can therefore be fully considered for spur gear tooth stiffness evaluation. The influence of gear fillet determined by tip fillet radius of the rack-type tool is quantified parametrically. The proposed model is validated to be effective by comparing with a finite element model. Further, the model is applied to investigate the stiffness variations produced by tooth addendum modification, tooth profile nonuniform wear and modification.