Experimental investigation on the effect of misalignment on the wear failure for spline couplings

Abstract

The teeth of misaligned spline couplings used in power transmission parts of helicopter and aero-engine often suffer serious abnormal wear faults during service. Through the self-made spline coupling test rig, the mechanism of misalignment on the spline coupling wear was explored. The tooth contact domain of the spline coupling with shaft misalignment is close to the addendum, and the tooth contact domain of the spline coupling with angle misalignment is mainly concentrated on the side of the tooth end. The edge contact effect becomes more serious as the amount of misalignment increases, resulting in abnormal wear at specific positions on the tooth surface. The presence of misalignment increases the vibration intensity of the spline coupling based vibration signal monitoring, which will increase the wear of the teeth. In addition, the difference in system vibration response of different misalignment types can be used to identify the misalignment failure mode of the spline coupling. It can be inferred from the characterization of wear debris that fretting wear is the cause of the failure of the misaligned spline coupling. Tooth modification, surface strengthening modification and lubrication design are necessary as potential solutions to improve the wear resistance of misaligned spline couplings.