OPTIMAL ENGINEERING DESIGN OF SPUR GEAR SETS

The constant pressure to build less expensive, lighter weight, quieter running and more powerful machinery and vehicles has resulted in a rich knowledge base for gear design. Although gear design is regarded as a highly complicated art, there are proven technologies and methodologies available to aid the designer in this difficult task. Most optimization technologies and methodologies found in the wealth of published information on gear design have been focused on problems where one design variable at a time is optimized, for instance, center distance, weight or wear resistance. This research takes a different approach for optimal gear design. Four objectives are listed and optimized simultaneously, under a given set of design constraints. In this paper, the mathematical formulation and an algorithmic procedure to solve this multiple-objective gear design problem are discussed. The results are compared with those from previous research.