Windage Power Losses of Ordinary Gears: Different CFD Approaches Aimed to the Reduction of the Computational Effort

Efficiency improvement is one of the main challenges in all fields of design. The reduction of power losses is becoming a great concern also in the design of power transmissions. For this reason it is important to have specific models available in order to quantify the power losses during the design stage. The power losses of a gear transmission can be subdivided into bearing losses, seal losses, meshing losses and hydraulic losses. Although literature provides models for the prediction of losses related to bearings or to gear meshing, for the calculations of the losses generated by the interaction with the lubricant, only few and simplified models are available. For this reason the authors recognize that a general purpose method is required in order to overcome this lack of fit and to improve the capability to predict the efficiency of gearboxes. Being able to compare different design solutions means being able to improve the efficiency, reduce the operating temperature and, consequently, improve the reliability of the system. In this paper, the windage losses generated by a single rotating gear have been studied exploiting different numerical approaches. The results obtained have been compared with measurements showing good agreement.