Digital Simulation of Impact Phenomenon in Spur Gear Systems

A digital simulation model is developed to represent a lightly loaded geared torsional system consisting of a drive unit, spur gear pair and load connected by flexible shafts. A clearance model called an Impact Pair [13] is used to represent the gear pair and includes the effects of backlash, time-varying stiffness and damping of the gear teeth and tooth-form error. Experimentally determined frequency spectra of the torsional oscillations of a gear-driven shaft have been plotted and reported on earlier [1]. Similar frequency plots are obtained from the simulation study, and data from these plots are compared with the experimental results for a variety of parameter changes including shaft speed, backlash and load. Results indicate that the simulation model portrays reasonably well the torsional behavior of the output shaft.