Vibration characteristics of gear system with a cracked-gear tooth: modeling and experiments

Abstract

Gear tooth crack failure is a cruel problem in the gear transmission system. The research on the simulation and experiment is the hotpots in the field. The theoretical and experimental investigations on the vibration characteristics of a gear system with a cracked gear tooth are carried out in this study. A finite element (FE) model is built to predict the crack propagation path in a gear tooth and determine the time-varying mesh stiffness (TVMS) of gear pairs. A dynamic model of the gear system is developed using the lumped-mass model. The established models are validated by comparing the computing results with experimental ones. The influences of crack length on TVMS and vibration characteristics of the gear system are analyzed in detail. The proposed methods can provide useful guidance for fault diagnosis and dynamic performance evolution prediction of a gear system.