Effect of the Number of Teeth on the Structural Integrity of Gear Shaft base on Finite Element Method

Abstract

Gear shaft is an indispensable component in many dynamic mechanical systems including automotive drive systems, turbine systems, and industrial manufacturing machines. Precise control of the structural integrity of gear shaft with different number of teeth is crucial to the safety and reliability of its application in mechanical systems. In this paper, finite element method (FEM) is adopted to instigative the effect of changing the number of teeth on the strain and deformation of a series of spur gear shafts. Firstly, a mesh type dependence simulation is conducted to determine the appropriate mesh type for finite element analysis (FEA) of gear shaft. Secondly, a mesh size sensitivity test is performed, which determines the suitable mesh size. After the precise FEM is determined, strain and deformation simulations are carried out based on a gear shaft series with gear module 1.5 and number of teeth ranging from 10 to 13. The simulation results demonstrated that increasing the teeth number increases the maximum strain of the gear shafts while decreases the maximum deformation. The results are coherent with the change in gear shaft geometry with the change in teeth number.