Weight Reduction Design of Gear Drive Based on Parameter and Structural Optimization

Abstract

. For a medium or large-sized gear drive, in order to achieve the optimum weight reduction effect, an approach of weight reduction design is proposed that multi-objective optimization of gear parameters is carried out firstly, and then structural optimization is adopted to design the gear former. The rational design parameters of a gear drive are determined by the multi-objective optimization with minimizing the sum of gear volumes and the equivalent moment of inertia of input shaft (EMI) synchronously. Conceptual design of the former is given by structural topology optimization of the gear, and the reasonability of topology optimization can be demonstrated by static and dynamic analysis. The results indicate that for a double-reduction gearbox of 500KW co-rotating twin screw pulping extruder, the EMI of the gear drive reduces by 20.88% through the multi-objective optimization of gear parameters, and the moment of inertia of a bull gear reduces by 38.86% through structural topology optimization.