Thermo-cavitation study of helical gears caused by vibration

In the context of high-precision manufacturing, filling the gap in the study of the correlation between helical gear dynamics and thermo-cavitation has a significant impact on the optimal design of transmission systems. For this purpose, a cavitation two-phase flow research system containing fluid energy, temperature and dynamic model is constructed, aiming at studying the phenomenon of vibration-cavitation under the non-constant flow and variable temperature of oil in helical gear system, analyzing the evolution law of cavitation in the meshing region and revealing the thermo-cavitation generation mechanism under the influence of vibration. Besides, the reliability of the numerical method is assessed by the relative error between the experimental and simulation results. The results show that fluid thermal effect has a significant impact on cavitation at extreme operating conditions, with high speeds being the main factor in the dramatic increase in cavitation. The load profoundly affects the fluctuation of cavitation and the contact surface temperature, but there exists an optimal value to achieve a balance between the two, the value of helix angle between 15° and 20° is a well choice.