Suppression of several different modal responses in split-path transmissions by mesh phasing

Abstract

This paper studies the effectiveness of adopting mesh phasing for suppressing several particular modal responses in a typical split-path transmission. The dynamic model admits three planar degrees of freedom for each gear and considers time-varying mesh stiffnesses, which captures the effect of mesh phasing. The vibration modes of the system are analyzed for the time-invariant case with average mesh stiffnesses, and the characteristics of each mode shape are summarized. Then, according to the characteristic of rigid-body modes, a new method for eliminating the rigid-body displacement of a time-variant system is proposed. This method has a clear physical interpretation and is convenient to use. The modal equations are solved numerically after removal of the equation of the rigid-body mode. It is found that appropriate mesh phasing can effectively suppress several different modal responses, and a physical interpretation of this phenomenon is provided by using the modal equations and the modal analysis results.