A study of spur gear torsional mesh stiffness

Through applying finite element methods (FEM), the results of a detailed three-dimensional analysis of the torsional mesh stiffness of spur gears were presented in this paper. Hertz formula can only calculate the contact stress approximately, while FEM can be used to conduct precise analysis of the tooth contact stress and deformation. In this paper, tooth contact of a pair of spur gears system is analyzed as body contact in a three-dimensional coordinate. The gears torsional deformation including three main components which are the body torsional deformation, tooth bending deformation and tooth surface contact deformation, the three components determine the torsional mesh stiffness of gears. The torsional mesh deformation and stiffness under different torque case are analyzed in mesh. In this paper, FEM are used to conduct the difference of one pair teeth and two pairs teeth torsional mesh stiffness, and the different gear torsional mesh deformation and stiffness in different contact position are analyzed, it is found that the stiffness compensation exist when contrasting the two different mesh case.