Assessing the role of plastic deformation in gear-health monitoring by precision measurement of failed gears

Abstract For constant loading and speed conditions, the principal sources of vibration excitation arising from meshing gears, characterised by the “static transmission error” (STE) excitation, are geometric deviations of the working surfaces of the teeth from equi-spaced perfect involute surfaces, and tooth/gear body elastic deformations. Changes in these two sources caused by tooth-bending-fatigue damage on one or a few teeth are manifested primarily in the rotational-harmonic content of the STE of each individual damaged gear of the meshing pair, and are most effectively detected in the time domain. The optimum number of gear rotations to be used in synchronous averaging is specified, along with how such synchronous averaging can be used to eliminate the effects of the mating gear in the case of “hunting tooth” gear pairs, and to minimise these effects otherwise. Precision measurements made on the teeth of a gear failed in a tooth-bending-fatigue test strongly suggest that whole-tooth plastic deformation—i.e. yielding, rather than changes in tooth stiffness caused by tooth-root cracks, is the principal source of detectable damage in the case of tooth bending fatigue. Such plastic deformations are geometric deviation STE contributions. Differences in gear materials, materials processing, and gear operating properties may significantly affect the amounts of such plastic deformations before tooth breakage and the operating duration between initial damage detection and tooth breakage, thereby suggesting the need for testing to determine such dependencies.

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