Quasi-static-model-based wear analysis of helical gears

A quasi-static wear model for helical gears is proposed based on finite element method and Archard's formula to investigate the wear characteristics of tooth surface in real operation conditions. The numerical simulation reveals that the wear depth distributes unevenly along the tooth lead and varies along the tooth profile. The surface wear depth claims its minimal value at the pitch circle and reaches its maximal value near the tooth root of the pinion. The effects of misalignment on wear depth are further investigated to provide useful information for gear designers. The numerical simulation reveals that the vertical misalignment is more influential than the parallel misalignment on the gear wear depth. Therefore, to eliminate the negative effects of misalignment, the misalignment should be strictly controlled.

Improved analytical model for mesh stiffness calculation of cracked helical gear considering interactions between neighboring teeth

As one of the most typical fault forms of the helical gear,the crack will change the dynamic excitation and further affect the dynamic behaviors of the transmission systems.Due to the complicated structure of the helical gears,the coupling effect between the neighboring loaded teeth is usually ignored in the mesh stiffness calculation,making it considerably overestimated especially in the case of the crack fault.An improved mesh stiffness calculation method of helical gear with spatial crack is proposed to make up this gap.The interactions between the loaded neighboring teeth induced by the gear body flexibility were considered to improve the calculation accuracy and applicability.Besides,the load distribution law for the engaged cracked tooth along the tooth width and profile can be obtained.The results indicated that the mesh stiffness of the multi-tooth engagement calculation using this model could be further improved compared with the traditional methods.Finally,the effects of the helix angle,crack depth,and crack propagation length on the mesh stiffness and load distribution were investigated using the proposed method.

Investigation on Mesh and Sideband Vibrations of Helical Planetary Ring Gear Using Structure, Excitation and Deformation Symmetries

Time?variant excitations in planetary gear trains can cause excessive noise and vibration and even damage the system on a permanent basis. This paper focuses on the elastic vibrations of a helical planetary ring gear subjected to mesh and planet?pass excitations. Motivated by the structure, excitation and deformation symmetries, this paper proposes dual?frequency superposition and modulation methods to capture the mesh and sideband vibrations. The transi?tion between ring gear tooth and planet is introduced to address the excitations and vibrations. The phasing e ect of ring gear tooth and planet on various deformations is formulated. The inherent connections between the two types of vibrations are identified. The vibrations share identical exciting rules and the wavenumber and modulating signal order both equal the linear combination of tooth and planet counts. The results cover in?plane bending and extensional, out?of?plane bending and torsional deformations. Main findings are verified by numerical calculation and comparisons with the open literature. The analytical expressions can be used to determine whether the sideband is caused by component fault or only by elastic vibration. The methods can be extended to other power?transmission systems because little restriction is imposed during the analysis.

Novel Concentric Tube Robot Based on Double-Threaded Helical Gear Tube

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a malignant tumor originating from the nasal mucosa. It is a malignanttumor of the head and neck. Concentric tube robot (CTR), as it can form a complicated shape and access hardto-reach lesions, is often used in minimally invasive surgeries. However, some CTRs are bulky because of theirtransmission design. In this paper, a light CTR based on double-threaded helical gear tube is proposed. Sucha CTR is less cumbersome than the traditional CTR as its actuation unit is compact and miniaturized. Themapping relationship between the gear tube attitude and motor output angle is obtained by kinematic analysis.The precision, stability, and repeatability of the driving mechanism are tested. The experimental results showthat the positioning error in the translation test is less than 0.3 mm, the rolling angle error in the stability testis less than 0.6◦, and the error in the translation repeatability test is less than 0.005 mm. Finally, a tip-targetingtest is performed using the new CTR, which verifies the feasibility of the CTR for surgeries.