Vibration and noise characteristics of a gear reducer under different operation conditions

Abstract

Gear system is characterized by high efficiency, compact structure, and transmission ratio stability, and it has been extensively applied in various industrial equipment. This paper presents a novel preliminary estimate method for gear reducer noise radiation and vibration characteristics, and systematic researches on radiation characteristics of gear reducer are made. In the noise analysis process, the influence of time-varying mesh stiffness, error excitation, and tooth flank contact feature are comprehensively considered, the linear vibration model and nonlinear vibro-impact model for transmission system is set up, and then the dynamic load of the gearbox is obtained by solving the model. The dynamic load of bearing is taken as an excitation, the finite element method/boundary element method is adopted to analyze vibration and noise radiation characteristics of the gear reducer. The time domain response and field point noise spectrum at sound field are obtained, and the influence of harmonic components in excitation on vibration noise radiation of gearbox are discussed. The dynamic characteristics and sound radiation characteristics of gear reducer under different operating conditions are calculated, the change pattern of frequency component of the bearing dynamic load and noise radiation based on operating condition are obtained, and some interesting conclusions are observed from research that the gearbox produce the linear vibration and noise under the heavy load condition. Meanwhile, the nonlinear vibro-impact and noise is appeared under light load condition. The distribution of the gearbox radiated nose is uniform in various conditions, but noise takes sub-harmonic components as fundamental frequency and more peaks in the noise spectrum are observed. With the increase of the rotary speed, the noise tallies with the trend described by Kato formula except that under the gear system resonance speed. The impact force between teeth flanks shall be on the increase with the increase of rotary speed, and gear pair vibration experiencing a course from irregular vibration to regular periodic rattle vibration. With the increase of load, the noise of reducer changes with load as the variation of logarithmic function. For the noise in the process with load on the increase from no-load (the load is 0), the gear reducer vibration condition experienced both sides collision, single-side collision, and normal meshing in three stages. The radiated nose is increased gradually, but the abrupt change happened in critical positions between both sides collision and single-side collision as well as single-side collision and normal meshing in the process. The conclusions of this paper will offer theoretical basis for reducer to reduce vibration and noise.