Analytical method for gear body-induced tooth deflections of hybrid metal-composite gears

Abstract

Hybrid metal-composite gears are designed for weight optimization and vibration/noise control in gear transmission systems. However, it is time-consuming and expensive to analyze the meshing characteristics of hybrid gears based on the finite element method (FEM) and experiment. Therefore, this work presents an efficient analytical method (AM) for calculating gear body-induced tooth deflections of hybrid gears. Based on the multi-scale modeling method, mechanical properties of the two-dimensional triaxial braided composite (2DTBC) web are predicted by integrating micro yarn properties, meso braiding structures, and macro configuration. Subsequently, boundary problems of isotropic and anisotropic planar elastic rings are investigated to deduce analytical formulas for gear body-induced tooth deflections of hybrid gears considering structure coupling effect. The comparison with the FEM demonstrates that the proposed AM can accurately and effectively estimate gear body-induced tooth deflections. More results show that periodic variation exists in gear body-induced tooth deflections within one rotation cycle, while the rim thickness contributes more to weight reduction and the amplitude and fluctuation of tooth deflections than the braiding angle. This work provides beneficial guidance for the meshing behavior and weight reduction design of hybrid gears.