Vibration in gear systems

Grzegorz Litak
a,
*
, Michael I. Friswell
b
a
Department of Applied Mechanics, Technical University of Lublin, Nadbystrzycka 36, PL-20-618 Lublin, Poland
b
Department of Aerospace Engineering, Queens Building, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
Accepted 30 September 2002
Communicated by T. Kapitaniak
Abstract
This paper simulates the non-linear vibration of a gear pair including shaft exibility. Backlash is included because
of the clearance between the teeth and the periodic variation in the stiness of the mesh produces a parametric exci-
tation. This paper shows the dierent behaviour that may be observed when the additional degree of freedom is added
to the single degree of freedom model previously analysed.
2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Gear box dynamics is characterised by a periodically changing stiness. In real gear systems a backlash also exists
that can lead to a loss in contact between the teeth. Due to this loss of contact the gear has piecewise linear stiness
characteristics, and the gears can vibrate regularly and chaoticaly [16]. The theoretical description of this phenomenon
has been based mainly on single degree of freedom models [17] or multi degree of freedom models neglecting backlash
[8,9]. This paper examines the eect of adding an additional degree of freedom to account for shaft exibility on one
side of the gearbox. This may also be regarded as a single mode approximation to the torsional system dynamics, or
alternatively as a simple model for a vibration neutraliser or absorber installed in one of the gears.
2. Gear system model
Here the motion of a single stage transmission gear, where one gear is coupled to a exible shaft, will be modelled.
Fig. 1 shows a schematic of the physical system. The gear wheels are shown with moments of inertia I
1
and I
2
and are
coupled by the stiness and damping of the teeth mesh, represented by k
Z
and c
Z
. The additional degree of freedom is
modelled as a disk of moment of inertia I
3
that is coupled to the gearbox via a shaft of torsional stiness k
S
. External
moments, M
1
, M
2
and M
3
are applied to the gear wheels and the disk as shown in Fig. 1.
The equations of motion of the system may be written in terms of the three degrees of freedom, w
1
, w
2
and w
3
, that
represent the rotational angles of the gear wheels and disk. These angles are those that remain after the steady rotation
of the system is removed [6]. Thus, if the backlash is neglected initially,
I
1

ww
1
k
Z
r
1
w
1
r
2
w
2
c
Z
r
1
_
ww
1
r
2
_
ww
2
r
1
M
1
1
I
2

ww
2
k
Z
r
1
w
1
r
2
w
2
c
Z
r
1
_
ww
1
r
2
_
ww
2
r
2
k
S
w
3
w
2
M
2
2
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +48-81-525-9061; fax: +48-81-525-0808.
E-mail address: litak@archimedes.pol.lublin.pl (G. Litak).
0960-0779/03/$ - see front matter 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S0960- 0779( 02) 00452- 6
Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 16 (2003) 795800
www.elsevier.com/locate/chaos
I
3

ww
3
k
S
w
3
w
2
M
3
3
where r
1
and r
2
are the radii of gear wheels and the overdot represents dierentiation with respect to time.
The gear system is able to rotate with a constant relative displacement at the gear mesh and with no strain in the
exible shaft. It is possible to decouple this motion and reduce the number of equations from three to two using the new
relative displacement coordinates x r
1
w
1
r
2
w
2
and y r
2
w
3
w
2
. These new coordinates represent the relative
displacement of the gear wheels at the teeth and the torsional displacement in the exible shaft. The equation of motion
for x is obtained by subtracting r
2
=I
2
times Eq. (2) from r
1
=I
1
times Eq. (1), and for y by subtracting r
2
=I
2
times Eq. (2)
from r
2
=I
3
times Eq. (3). Thus,
xx 2f_ xx ktgx; g b
1
k
S
y Bt B
0
B
1
cosxt H 4
yy b
2
k
S
y 2b
3
f_ xx b
3
ktgx; g Dt D
0
D
1
cosxt U 5
where the parameters are easily derived from Eqs. (1)(3), as
b
1
1=I
2
6
b
2
1=I
2
1=I
3
7
b
3
r
2
2
=I
2
=r
2
1
=I
1
r
2
2
=I
2
8
2f c
Z
r
2
2
=I
2
r
2
2
=I
2
9
Bt r
1
M
1
=I
1
r
2
M
2
=I
2
10
Dt r
2
M
2
=I
2
r
2
M
3
=I
3
11
f, kt, gx; g and Bt have the same meaning as given in [6] to allow easy comparison with the single degree of freedom
model. Note that the backlash and time dependent meshing stiness have been included by rewriting the meshing force
as [6]
k
Z
r
2
1
=I
1
r
2
2
=I
2
x ktgx; g 12
Eqs. (4) and (5) have assumed that the moments on the gear system are composed of a sinusoidal moment at frequency
x with a constant oset.
Fig. 1. The physical model.
796 G. Litak, M.I. Friswell / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 16 (2003) 795800
Fig. 2. The meshing stiness kt.
Fig. 3. Poincaree sections for various k
S
, with g 10 and _ xx
0
0:5x.
G. Litak, M.I. Friswell / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 16 (2003) 795800 797
When there is no exible shaft k
S
0, and Eq. (4) gives a single degree of freedom equation. If the shaft stiness
becomes large then y becomes very small, and a single degree of freedom system is obtained where I
2
is replaced with
I
2
I
3
. Alternatively Eqs. (4) and (5) may be combined by assuming that yy is small to give
xx 2f 1

b
1
b
3
b
2

_ xx 1

b
1
b
3
b
2

ktgx; g Bt
b
1
b
2
Dt 13
showing that the two degrees of freedom system is indeed equivalent to the one degree of freedom system of [6].
The meshing stiness is periodic and the backlash is described by a piece-wise linear function. Fig. 2 shows a typical
time dependent mesh stiness variation kt [6] and the backlash is modelled for a clearance g as
gx; g
x x P0
0 g < x < 0
x g x 6g
8
<
:
14
3. Vibrations of a gear system
Numerical simulations of Eqs. (4) and (5) have been performed to highlight the eect of the addition of the exible
shaft. System parameters have been used that reproduce the single degree of freedom results from Warmi nnski et al. [6]
Fig. 4. Bifurcation diagrams for v _ xx versus B for various k
S
, with g 10 and _ xx
0
3:5x.
798 G. Litak, M.I. Friswell / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 16 (2003) 795800
for high shaft stiness. Thus x 1:5, B
0
1, B
1
8, D
0
1, D
1
8, H 0, U 0 and (1 b
1
b
3
=b
2
)f 0:08. For
the initial simulations b
1
1, b
2
2, b
3
0:5 and the initial conditions of y and _ yy are zero. Various clearance pa-
rameters g and shaft stinesses k
S
will be used.
Fig. 3 shows the Poincaree sections for various k
S
, with g 10 and initial conditions x
0
12:0 and v
0
0:5x. The
x is included in the initial velocity to compare with the results of Warmi nnski et al. [6] who used the non-dimensional
single degree of freedom equation. Note that due to the relatively large backlash (g 10) x
0
12:0 is not a big initial
displacement (see Eq. (14)). In Fig. 3 only x and v _ xx are shown, and for k
S
10000 the shaft is essentially rigid and
the results of the single degree of freedom model are reproduced [6]. As the shaft stiness reduces the y and _ yy com-
ponents of chaotic attractor (Fig. 2 for k
S
10000, 100, 5, 2) become signicant and result in a reduction in the
structure of the attractor. When k
S
1:25 the dynamics reduce to a period 6 oscillation.
Consider now the bifurcation diagrams with respect to B for various k
S
. Fig. 4 shows the results for an initial velocity
of v
0
3:5x. Note the dierent initial velocity from that used for Fig. 3. Such a change of initial conditions can lead
to dierent attractors as the system is non-linear [6]. Although for k
S
> 5 the character of the solution is similar to the
single degree of freedom model, as the shaft stiness reduces the character of the solution changes considerably.
The eect of shaft stiness may be highlighted by plotting the bifurcation diagrams with respect to k
S
for various
values of g, a system parameter which introduces the non-linearity. Fig. 5 shows the results for B 8 and x
0
0:5x.
Once again the character of the solution changes signicantly with the shaft stiness showing a region of relatively large
amplitude velocity for small stiness k
S
< 2.
4. Conclusions
This paper has examined the eect of adding an additional degree of freedom to a simple model of gear vibration
(Fig. 1). The extra degree of freedom, which may represent a exible shaft or a vibration neutraliser, has a considerable
eect on the dynamics. This is particularly visible in Fig. 2 where we present the evolution of attractor Poincaree sections
with respect to the shaft stiness k
S
showing a number of chaotic and regular attractors. The detailed discussion of the
character of the transition from one chaotic attractor to another is left to a future publication. Interestingly, the
maximum vibration velocity is obtained at a relatively small k
S
(Fig. 5). Also note that both limits of small (k
S
0) and
large (k
S
!1) stiness lead to a reduction in the dimensionality of the model, which eectively leaves a one degree of
Fig. 5. Bifurcation diagrams for v _ xx versus k
S
for various values of g, with B 8 and _ xx
0
0:5x.
G. Litak, M.I. Friswell / Chaos, Solitons and Fractals 16 (2003) 795800 799
freedom system (Eqs. (4) and (5)). The intermediate coupling k
S
is a proper bifurcation parameter giving a wide range of
system behaviour. Proper changing of its value can be used to control of system vibrations.
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