Modeling Vibration Intensity of Aircraft Bevel Gears

The subject is the aircraft bevel gears, which are part of the drive systems of gas turbine engines and helicopter transmissions. The article deals with defect specifics of the aircraft conical gears with a circular tooth as compared to the conical gear wheels of general engineering. The finite element method has been used to find by calculation that the main reason for destruction of aircraft bevel gears is a resonant vibration excitation of the gear wheel rim due to its nodal diameter eigenvibrations happened to be within the operating range of the transmission rotation frequencies. A parametric finite element model has been developed. It allows us to investigate the impact of modification parameters of the drive side of gear wheels on the function of the kinematic transmission error at different values of transmitted torque. Using the method of main coordinates, a reduced dynamic model of the bevel gear has been developed to allow simulating the vibration intensity of bevel gears with various parameters of the working profile modification. Within the framework of evaluation test of the dynamic model, amplitude-frequency characteristics have been constructed for the main parameters of transmission oscillations, including vibrational stresses in the teeth space. It is found that modification parameters of the transmission drive side have a significant effect on the vibration intensity of the bevel gears in the entire operating range. The main factor affecting the vibration stress amplitude in the gear wheel is the amplitude of the kinematic error function with the corresponding torque transmitted. The obtained research results can be used when designing the new aircraft drives and modernizing the existing ones. As part of the further development, it is expected to create a technique for recording the damage accumulation in the conical gears, taking into account the typical flight profile of a gas turbine engine or a helicopter.