Contact Stress Analysis and Optimization of Bevel Gear Pairs by Theoretical and FEA

Abstract— The gears are used to transmit the motion and power from one shaft to another shaft by physical contact between gear teeth. The bevel gear is used to transmit motion and power between the axis of intersection and the non-intersecting axis. Gears are generally subjected to loads due to these loads, tooth bending stress and contact stress will be developed on the gear tooth. Much research on the action of the gear has confirmed that contact stresses also influence the formation of pits on the surface of the tooth. Gear tooth is the most important element in a gear system and has been focused on the current study. An analysis has been carried out for the three different types of materials used to make the bevel gear. The failure of gears due to contact stress is high compared to bending stress. Stress analysis has been a key area of research to minimize failure of the gear and optimize the design. The study of contact stress developed between the mating gears are very important for the gear design. The current goal is that the finite element analysis of the bevel gear is performed to determine the maximum contact stress by ABAQUS as the solver and also the theoretical maximum contact stress is calculated by the Hertz equation. In this study finite element analysis results were validated with theoretical results.

Keywords— Bevel gear; contact stress; tooth bending stress; finite element method; optimization.

INTRODUCTION

Each shaft includes gears which are connected to each other through the teeth. Gears are0used to transmit0power and motion from one0shaft to another0shaft through direct contact. Bevel gear is used to transmit the motion and power between two intersecting or non-intersecting shafts. Bevel gears0are gears which intersect the axes0of the two shafts and tooth bearing0faces of the gears0themselves are conical in shape. Bevel gears0are most often0mounted on0shafts that are090 degrees, but can also be designed in different angles. There are wide ranges of bevel gears that are used by industries, but each of these gears has the same use, which is to transfer the motion from one shaft to another. Gear can be classified as spur and helical gears, which have parallel shaft, while the other one are non-parallel shaft which are spiral gears and bevel gears [4].
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