A novel contact model for rough surfaces using piecewise linear interpolation and its application in gear wear

Abstract

Wear is directly related to rough surface contact, and the accuracy of a wear prediction model depends on the accurate determination of contact pressure. In this work, a numerical model with high computational accuracy for rough surface contact is developed and applied to the wear prediction of spur gears. To acquire contact pressure, the integral equation that contact pressure should satisfy is discretized into a set of linear equations by piecewise linear interpolating contact pressure. Then, a gear wear model including rough surface contact is established. The proposed contact model is verified by comparing with smooth and rough surface contact, and the wear depths of a spur gear drive with geometry and pressure updates are analyzed. Result shows that a small roughness value among contact surfaces may cause a large change in contact pressure. The effects of main design parameters on gear wear are subsequently investigated. Gear wear is found to decrease with increased module and pressure angle but increases with increased transmission ratio and input torque. These findings indicate that reasonable parameter matching is beneficial to improving gear wear resistance.