Parametric Modeling and Stress Analysis of Automobile Transmission Gears

H. X. Yang
Dept. of Mechanical &Electrical Engineering Wuhan University of Science and Engineering Wuhan, China yhx8877@tom.com
AbstractIn this paper, Pro/E software is used building an accurate parameterized cylindrical helical gear model, which is an accurate analysis model for ANSYS finite element analysis. The finite element calculation is conducted by use of the software ANSYS, analyzing the position of the most unfavorable load line of involute helical gear engagement as well as applying load on gear in virtue of the most unfavorable load line, increasing the accuracy of analysis and calculation of gear strength, and offering more accurate data for gear design. At the meantime, the effect of different fillets on the maximum root stress is studied, providing a quantitative basis for the case hardening method that enhances the bending strength of gear. Keywords- helical gear; parametric modeling; finite element analysis (FEA)

F. M. Chen
Dept. of Mathematics & Physics Wuhan University of Science and Engineering Wuhan, China cfm8833@tom.com II. PARAMETERIZED 3D MODELING OF HELICAL GEAR UNDER THE PRO/E ENVIRONMENT [1-4][8-10]

I.

INTRODUCTION

A. Parameter setting of gear The gears used for sedan put strict restrictions on noise; meanwhile, due to the limited space, the gear must be small but the load it born is big, so the standard gear as specified by the relevant national standard always cant meet the needs. Therefore, various professional transmission producers will develop some non-standard gears based on their past experience and database. For example, the pressure angle and helix angle of gear are non-standard. The parameter setting of gear in this paper for modeling the automobile transmission gear is as listed in Tab.1. The parameters of selected gear are set up through the Parameter Setting dialog box.
TABLE I.
Module M_N=2.0 Numbe r of teeth Z=24a

In recent years, with the advancing automobile technology, the requirements placed on the load-bearing capacity and the operational reliability of automobile transmission are increasingly high. Gears are regarded as important parts of the transmission, and their operating conditions are complicated and varying due to the constantly-changing driving speeds and frequent gear shifting. At present, the design of automobile transmission gears are still, according to traditional methods, to simplify gear tooth as cantilever beam for calculation. The helical gear of transmission is converted into the equivalent spur gear on normal plane, and then, in accordance with the simplified calculation method for the bending strength of the tooth root of spur gear, the approximate analysis, calculation and drawing are carried out. However, this method needs very complicated and inefficient design calculation and drawing procedures and the approximate calculation may degrade the accuracy. In view of this, it is necessary to seek a scientific and accurate gear modeling method and an effective calculation and analysis method for strength. This paper, taking Pro/E software as the platform, conducts the 3D parameterized solid modeling of helical gears of transmission and uses the finite element analysis (FEA) software ANSYS to analyze the stress of gear model. By this method, a designer can rapidly, effectively and accurately do the technical work of determination, analysis, comparison and drawing of the design scheme with a short design cycle and high quality of design. As a result, the parameterized design and optimal design of the automobile transmission gears are realized.

PARAMETERS OF HELICAL GEAR

Pressure angle Helix angle beta=28 Bottom clearance coefficient cx=0.25 Addendum coefficient hax=1.1

alpha=17.5

B. Draw the standard circle curve The equation of calculating geometric dimension of gear is added according to the relations between parameters, for geometric constraint and calculation of the four standard circles, namely reference circle, base circle, addendum circle and dedendum circle. The standard circle curve is drawed by the below relations. M_T=M_N/cos(beta) A_T=ATAN(tan(alpha)/cos(beta)) d=z* M_T db=d*cos(A_T) da=d+2*hax* M_N df=d-2*(hax+cx)* M_N C. Plot the gear face involute curve Open the menu Curve Option , choose From Equation , select Descartes , and input the involute parameter equation in the Cartesian coordinate system to plot the gear face involute curve, that is r=db/2 theta=t*60

978-1-4244-4639-1/09/$25.00 2009 IEEE

x=r*cos(theta)+ r*sin(theta)*theta*pi/180 y=r*sin(theta)- r*cos(theta)*theta*pi/180 z=0 By the Datum Axis box, a datum axis A1 is created, passing through the datum point that is the intersection point of involute and reference circle. By using the Datum Plane box, the datum plane DTM1 is created through the datum axis and the datum point. Another DTM2 is created, and the constraint over the included angle between the two datum planes is d5=-360/4/Z. Taking DTM2 as the mirror reference plane, the involute curve at one side can obtain a involute curve at another side by mirroring. the result is as shown in Fig.1.

involute profile on gear face. Then, the involute profile is copied on the other gear face; the result is as shown in Fig.3.

Figure 3. Transverse profile and helix line of gear

Figure 1. Curve of involute profile on gear face

D. Draw the transverse profile of gear tooth on gear face Select two involute curves, dedendum circle and addendum circle to create the primitive, draw two circles with the same radius and make them tangent to the involute and the dedendum circle respectively, as the transition curves at the tooth form root. Then the cutting tool is employed to trim them and form a complete gear face curve (as shown in Fig.2). The Equation box is made use of and the equation d10=0.38*m is added to obtain the radius of the transition arc at the tooth root.

F. Build a solid model of gear tooth Mixed scanning is conducted on the transverse profile along the helix line to extrude a solid gear tooth, which revolves in array, centering on the axis of gear blank and according to the number of teeth. Then, the gear teeth evenly distributed on the helical gear is obtained. The functions of material removal, array, chamfering and so on are used to create the structural features such as axle hole, key way and chamfering edges etc. The finalized 3D model is as shown in Fig.4.

Figure 4. 3D solid model of gear

III.

ROOT STRESS ANALYSIS BY ANSYS [1][5-7]

Figure 2. Curve of profile on gear face

E. Plot the helix line of helical gear In the Pro/E, based on the given helix angle of gear and reference diameter, the datum plane DTM2 is selected as the sketching plane. the below relations is added. sd0=beta,sd1=b*tan(beta)/2 An oblique line is drawn with collinear constraint added to both ends of it, The reference circle is stretched to be a circular cylinder. A helix line is generated by projecting the oblique line to the surface of the circular cylinder, and then trimmed by the cutting tool to form a complete curve of

The traditional root stress calculation regards gear as cantilever beam, calculates by the truncation method, and introduces some coefficients to consider the influences of unevenness, stress concentration and short cantilever beam. Generally speaking, the stress at the tooth root is the maximum, so the calculation of the stress at the maximum stress node on the root surface is applicable under most situations. However, the break of gear tooth not necessarily occurs at the maximum stress node. In order to fully make clear the reasons for tooth profile failure, the distribution of stress along the dangerous section of tooth root. We can employ the ANSYS software to make FEA and discretize the structure of calculation model into a considerable number of units, which are connected by nodes. The stresses on all nodes

on the surface of or inside the model can be obtained by computer. A. Import of gear model The model in the Pro/E is imported into the ANSYS finite element analysis software through interface. The gear material chosen is 20CrMnTi and the properties of materials and heat treatment are set as: case hardening with the surface hardness of 5761HRC, elastic modulus of 205GPa, Poissons ratio of 0.3 and the density of 794kg/m2. B. Gridding there is suitable program etc. In this paper, 20-node isoparametric element pattern is selected for the root stress analysis of helical gear. The division of original grids on gear face is as shown in Fig. 5. The points marked in the figure are the key points that reveal the regularity of form. The positions of these points can be adjusted properly according to parametric change of gear. The corresponding nodes to these points are organized as per 8-node isoparametric element, and then we can get the 8-node isoparametric planar grids, in which every 8-node isoparametric element is divided into four elements of the same type. In this manner, the grids are subdivided. Several sections parallel to the gear face are selected along the faces of helical gear teeth and partition the gear in equal parts. These sections can be seen as being obtained by revolving the gear face for different angles. Planar grid nodes on the sections can be generated by coordinate transformation of the planar grid nodes on the gear face. If all grid nodes on the gear face and on all sections are arranged in uniform order, the 20-node isoparametric element 3D finite element grid of the whole gear is generated. According to the aforesaid automatic generation and subdivision method of grids, the solid model is gridded. The result is as shown in Fig.5.

D. Position of most unfavorable load line As regards a single gear tooth, the position and length of its load line (that is, path of contact of gear pair) are always changing with the rotation of gear. If the maximum root stress is to be obtained, the position of the most unfavorable load line must be found.This paper simplifies the load as uniformly distributed along the path of contact, so the position of the most unfavorable load line is solely dependent on the engaging position. E. Load calculation Taking the driving gear in the automobile transmission case as an example, the most unfavorable load line, the boundary constraint and loading is as shown in Fig.6, Fig.7 is the nephogram of equivalent stress.

Figure 6. Most unfavorable load line and Loading and constraint

Figure 7. Nephogram of=5mm gear tooth stress

IV.
Figure 5. Original grid of gear face

ANALYSIS AND COMPARISON OF THE RESULTS OF ROOT STRESS CALCULATION

C. Boundary conditions On the model in Fig.6, the fixed constraint is acted on all nodes on the subface, the side face and the asymmetric face so that the DoF (Degree of Freedom) of translation movements of the three are constrained; during gridding, the nodes on these three faces are recorded to form a constrain node file. Based on this file, using the relevant commands of ANSYS software, these node constraints can be directly added on the finite element grid model.

A. Calculation results of ANSYS finite element method The tensile stress of node 205 near the transition curve of tooth root fillet is the biggest, and the maximum stress at the tight side of gear tooth is 146Mpa. The tensile stress of node 912 near the opposite tooth root is the biggest, and the maximum tensile stress at the tight side of gear tooth is -163Mpa.

B. Bending strength of traditional gear tooth The calculation formula of helical gear root stress: F F = t YFa YsaY Y bmn

By looking up the relative table, we get:

Y = 0.77
YFa = 0.70
Ysa = 2.55

Y = 1.60

The result of calculation (compressive stress neglected): F = 245.57 Mpa C. Comparison and analysis of results The root bending stress obtained by tradition calculation is a little big. This is because the compressive stress is omitted during calculation, and the tooth form factor YFa and the root stress correction factor take the relatively safe values. During traditional calculation, it is believed the root stress is at its maximum when external load acts on the crest, but it is not the case. Now it is multi-tooth meshing, so the load born by gear teeth should take account of not only the load factor, but also the contact ratio. In case of single-pair teeth engagement, despite the arm of force is smaller, all external loads act on a tooth, so its root bending stress is bigger. Therefore, the calculation of node of load acting on single-pair teeth engagement is comparatively more accurate, while the calculation on the basis of load acting on the crest is safer. The loading of gear by use of the most unfavorable load line is closer to the actual loading conditions during helical gear engagement, and thus the accuracy of analyzing and calculating the finite element strength of gears is improved effectively. Fig.7 indicates that: the root stress dwindles fast downwards along the dangerous section, and the high stress area is only the thin layer on the surface. In order to improve the bending strength of gear tooth, the case hardening method can be adopted. During hardening of gears in this example, if the depth of nitride layer at the root fillet is bigger than 0.43mm, the surface bending strength of gear tooth root can improved, which provides a quantitative basis for the case hardening. The size of transition fillet at the tooth root has great impact on the gear bending strength. Now we use the finite element method to study the maximum tensile stress and maximum compressive stress of tooth rate with the same parameters, the same loading conditions and the tooth root transition curve of different radius, as shown in Tab.2. we find, when the transition fillet changes from 2mm to 7mm, the maximum tensile

stress and the maximum compressive stress lowers respectively. It is obvious that the bigger the transition fillet is, the better the bending strength of gear tooth can be improved.
TABLE II. MAXIMUM TENSILE STRESS AND COMPRESSIVE STRESS UNDER DIFFERENT RADIUSES OF ROOT TRANSITION CURVE
Max. tensile stress /MPa Max. compressive stress /MPa

Radius of root transition curve /mm

2.00 3.00 5.00 7.00

173.59 161.64 146.00 126.83

-233.44 -223.21 -163.00 -143.90

REFERENCES
[1] F. N. Yang, and X. L. Long et al., Precise Modeling and Finite Element Analysis of Helical Gear, Mechanical and Technological Engineering Technology, 2002(6), pp.21-24. [2] Y. Cao, Examples of Surface Modeling by pro/enginer wildfire 3.0, Beijing: China Machine Press, 2007, pp. 131-168. [3] H. Sun, Z. M. Chen and W. J. Ge, Theory of Machines and Mechanisms, 7th ed., Beijing: China Higher Education Press, 2006. pp.174-193. [4] T. Wang, F. Q. Zhao and G. H. Li, A Course of Manual Transmission Modeling Examples, Beijing: China Machine Press, 2007, pp. 16-67. [5] T. B. Li, and G. Q. Wu, Finite Element Analysis of Stress Field of Main Reduction Gear of Automobile Transmission, Computer Technology and Application, 1999(3), pp.26-28. [6] X. L. Ye, and Y. J. Shi, Examples of Applications of ANSYS, An Engineering Analysis Software, 1st ed., Beijing: Tsinghua University Press, 2003, pp.301-508. [7] C. H. Zhang, Examples of Engineering Applications of ANSYS 11.0 Structural Analysis, 2nd ed., Beijing: China Machine Press, 2008. [8] G. Niemann, Machine Elements Design and Calculation in Mechanical Engineering, Gears, Springer-verlag Berlin Heidelb erg, New York, Vol.11. [9] Y. P. Li, 3D Modelling and Parametrized Design of Gears Based on Pro/E, Machine Design and Research, Shanghai, 2007(3), pp. 84-86. [10] Y. H. Yu, and Z. Z. Chen, The Parameterize Modeling and Finite Element Modal Analysis of Helical-gear, Design and Research, 2007(9), pp. 25-27.