Quick Iteration Algorithm for Cylindrical Gear Contact Pattern Development

Gear load is transmitted by the engaged gear teeth. The load distribution on the engaged tooth surfaces directly determines gear tooth stress status and service life. The contact pattern, gear tooth contact pressure distribution, directly alters the maximum contact and bending stresses, is critical for drive system designs. For a real gear train, the deformations of gear blank, bearing, housing, etc. contribute to contact pressure distribution. It consequently changes local contact pressure and bending stress. To accurately predict the gear contact pressure and bending stress in service, the interaction of whole gear train components needs to be modeled in the gear tooth contact analysis. It is not computational efficient for general purpose FEA packages. Transmission3D (Calyx) is designed for gear contact pattern simulation for given gear tooth surface geometry. When the contact pattern deviates from the design target, how to design a new gear tooth geometry is an open issue and discussed in this paper. Inverse engineering concept with Boussinesq solution is invoked and implemented through Excel macro for gear tooth surface microgeometry design. The design iteration based on this developed method is fast and low cost for gear pattern development.