Stress analysis of gear teeth using displacement potential function and finite differences

A new numerical approach has been developed for the analysis of displacements and stresses in arbitraryshaped elastic bodies subjected to mixed boundary conditions. An ideal mathematical model, based on the displacement-potential function, has been used in the 3nite-di4erence solution to investigate the state of stresses at the critical sections of spur gear teeth. Two di4erent types of gear tooth and two di4erent regions of loading are included in the present analysis. The solutions found by the present approach are compared and discussed in the light of available 3nite-element results in the literature