Investigation on meshing and dynamic characteristics of spur gears with tip relief under wear fault

Combining the loaded tooth contact analysis (LTCA) method and the gear dynamic model, a wear prediction model for spur gears with tip relief is established. The simulated wear depth is verified by the experimental results in a published reference. Based on the wear profile, the mesh stiffness and the tooth root stress obtained from the proposed model are compared with those obtained from the finite element model. Relative to the finite element method, the proposed method can greatly reduce the computation time. The effects of the tip relief and surface wear on the meshing and the dynamic characteristics are discussed. The tip relief can greatly decelerate the surface wear. Appropriate tip relief and slight wear can decrease the tooth interference and reduce the system vibration. Furthermore, the effects of the rotational speed on the wear depth are also studied and it is found that the quasi-static model is applicable to wear prediction when the rotational speed is away from the harmonic resonance peak.