Static and Dynamic Transmission Error Measurements of Helical Gear Pairs With Various Tooth Modifications

This paper presents a set of motion transmission error data for a family of helical gears having different profile and lead modifications operated under both low-speed (quasi-static) and dynamic conditions. A power circulatory test machine is used along with encoder and accelerometer-based transmission error measurement systems to quantify motion transmission behavior within wide ranges of torque and speed. Results of these experiments indicate that the tooth modifications impact the resultant static and dynamic transmission error amplitudes significantly. A design load is shown to exist for each gear pair of different modifications where static transmission error amplitude is minimum. Forced response curves and waterfall plots are presented to demonstrate that the helical gear pairs tested act linearly with no signs of nonlinear behavior such as tooth contact separations. Furthermore, static and dynamic transmission error amplitudes are observed to be nearly proportional, suggesting that static transmission error can be employed in helical gear dynamic models as the main gear mesh excitation. The data presented here is intended to fill a void in the literature by providing means for validation of load distribution and dynamic models of helical gear pairs.