ON MODELING THE GEAR DAMAGE

ACCUMULATION PROCESS

К МОДЕЛИРОВАНИЮ ПРОЦЕССА АККУМУЛИРОВАНИЯ

РАЗРУШЕНИЙ В ЗАЦЕПЛЕНИЯХ

Lect. Dr. Eng. Mirica R.F. 1, Prof. Dr. Eng. Dobre G. 1, Dipl. Eng. Sandu C. 2,
Dipl. Eng. Dobre D 1
University “POLITEHNICA” of Bucharest 1, TMCP 2, Romania
mirica@meca.omtr.pub.ro, geo@ meca.omtr.pub.ro, constantin.sandu@tmcp.rdsnet.ro

Abstract: The paper discusses aspects regarding the modelling gear damage accumulation process useful for the gear reliability
distribution calculus. Because the real loading levels are found under and above the transition domain of the S-N (Wöhler) diagrams (close
by the endurance limit), it is useful to abandon the S-N family modelled by the Basquin function. The present paper proposes to use another
form of S-N curves, without a break at the knee. In this case, the classical accumulation theories (Schott or Haibach) cannot be applied. As
a result, a theory of damage accumulation is proposed, which considers the modification of the calculus stress amplitude depending on
accumulated damage. Finally, an application is analysed and a comparison with experimental results is made.
KEYWORDS: GEAR, DAMAGE ACCUMULATION THEORY, S-N DIAGRAM

energy is transformed into heat and another part is included in the

1. Introduction
The paper discusses aspects regarding the modelling of gear
damage accumulation process used in the gear reliability
distribution calculus. In this paper the fatigue damage is only taken
into account from the multitude of damage modalities of the
toothed gears, which is evolutionary as the wear and produces the
continuous growth of the failure probability. The teeth fatigue
rupture is considered in the standards for gear calculation methods
(for example DIN 3990: 1987) as one of their most important
failure modes by normal operation.
The estimation by calculus of the reliability distribution can be
made using a model of the damage accumulation. A correct
modelling of this process supposes on one hand a good
understanding of the damage processes and this evolution in the
time and on the other hand the empirical description of the
influence of different factors as the load spectrum form, the loading
level etc. In this context there are two research directions:
a) a better approach of the fatigue process evolution
determining yet usually very complicated calculus methods;
b) a better inclusion in calculus of the experimental results (for
example, the S-N (Wöhler) curve form without knee point, the
decreasing of the endurance limit alongside the damage
accumulation etc.).
It is presented a proposal for the modelling the damage
accumulation process taking into account an important real
physical phenomenon of this process: modifying the damaging
effect of cycles alongside the damage accumulation.
2. Damage accumulation process aspects
2.1. On accumulated damaging energy
The fatigue damage of metallic materials that can produce the
failure of mechanical components consists in the progressive
modification of mechanical and physical properties pursuant to a
sufficiently great number of loading cycles (damage
accumulation). This modification is determined by the initial
material condition, the stress state nature, the stress history and
the influence of the environment. It is reflected in Schott (1990):
a) microscopic material structure change and correlated with
this effect - the energy accumulation and the entropy
augmentation;
b) hardness variation;
c) hysteresis loop variation;
d) internal damping change and other characteristics.
By cyclical stress, the hysteresis loop surface is proportional to the
mechanical energy consumed by friction in that cycle, i.e. the
variable stress of the materials is accompanied by the internal
friction phenomenon. Hereby, a part of the mechanical oscillations
structure of the material that is being deteriorated. Accepting that
the proportion of damaging accumulated energy into the total
internal damping energy is maintained, it results that the variation
of this accumulated energy may be correlated with the hysteresis
loop variation dependent upon the cycle number (figure 1).
εap
10-3 (1)
σ
σa
5⋅10-4
ε
(2)
ε ap (3)
104 2⋅104 3⋅104 n [cycles]
a) b)
Figure 1. Hysteresis loop variation with the cycle number
Schott (1990)
a) hysteresis loop; b) variation of plastic strength
σa stress amplitude; εap - plastic strain
2.2. On S-N (Wöhler) curve family
The S-N (Wöhler) curve family establishes the relation between
stress σ and cycle number N having the failure probability Pr as a
parameter:
N = f (σ , Pr ) (1)
The S-N curve family is the model of the damage accumulation
process for constant amplitude loading, in the sense that the curve
form indicates the increasing failure probability depending on the
stress and the cycle numbers. Today the S-N curves or their family
represent a basis in defining numerous models of damage
accumulation process in the extended case of variable loading.
This important case will be discussed later in the paper.
2.3. On decreasing the endurance limit with the damage
accumulation
The representation from the figure 2 is used in the following
considerations. The fatigue test is carried out under a stress at a
value grater than the endurance limit ( σ 0 > σ D0 ) on a limited
cycle numbers - at a number of cycles exceeding the one
corresponding to the line of French ( n > n F ) - and being smaller
than the one corresponding to the S-N curve ( n < N ). The stress is
smaller than the endurance limit ( σ < σ D0 ) but rupture may
occurs. The testing results were interpreted by a number of authors
(log)σ Secondary S-N
(Gnilke, 1980; Haibach, 1989; Schott, 1990) as a decrease of the
(Wöhler) lines
endurance limit ( σ D < σ D0 ).
These authors did not consider correctly the physical phenomenon S-N (Wöhler) line
of the material internal friction. Really the material internal
friction variation determines the increase of the damaging effect of
the loading at lower amplitude σ mentioned above. The results of σD,0
fatigue bending tests of specimens by steel (SAE 1030), presented σD(S)
by Schott (1990) after Kommers, are given in figure 3. It is σD,min
observed that the decrease of the relative current endurance limit
is more significant when the pre-stress σ 0 is higher. This fact may ND(S) ND,0 (log)N [cycles]
be justified only by the existence of the material internal friction a)
σ
increasing with the preload. i=1
σa1 S-N curve
i=2
σ damage curve Initial damage
(French line) S-N curve
σD i = 3 σD0 = x ⋅ σa1 D=0
σ1
σD0 i=4 σD(D) = xi ⋅ σa1
σai

S-N curves
Secondary
σ Stress
σD spectrum
i=5
with i = 6 i=6
blocks
nF (log) N [cycle]
Figure 2. Endurance limit decrease as follow of (log) n [cycles]
pre-stress σ1 depassing the damage curve after French b)

Figure 4. Models to modifying of S-N lines as consequence of

1 damage accumulation
σ0
= 1,1 ( × )
σD σ D0
σ0
= 1,2 ( ο)
0,8 σ D0
σ0
= 1,3 ( + )
σ D0
0,6
0 0,5 1 n/N
Figure 3. Relative endurance limit σ D as function of relative
pre-stress cycle number, by Schott (1990), after Kommers
N - cycle number on Wöhler curve at the given stress; n - cycle
number made at pre-stress level σi; σD0 - initial endurance
limit; σ D=σD/σD0 - current relative endurance limit.
The existence of the endurance domain of the S-N (Wöhler)
diagram requires that in calculus the damage accumulation of the
cycles with amplitudes in that domain is neglected. The problem is
additionally complicated by the necessity to consider the
phenomenon of gradual decrease of endurance limit analysed
before (determined by pre-load at higher level as the endurance
limit). For this reason, in a great number of theories (hypothesis)
of damage accumulation using S-N curves in linear form
(described with the Basquin function), models of the decrease
process of current endurance limit are considered. Gnilke (1987)
describes the change of the damage accumulation process using
secondary S-N (Wöhler) lines as presented in figure 4. In this
model, the modification of the inflexion point position (ND(S),
σD(S)) of the secondary S-N lines – whose theoretical bases are
developed by Gnilke (1980) - is taken into account gradually in
proportion as the damage is accumulating. Schott (1975, 1990)
and Haibach (1989) present similar theories.
2.4. Conclusions for the modelling of damage accumulation
process
Some partial conclusions that are useful for the modelling of
damage accumulation process are the next:
1. The damage by material fatigue is a complex process
depending on numerous factors that are insufficiently known.
a) after Gnilke, 1987; b) Consequent Miner Rule (Haibach, 1989)
The modelling of the physical phenomenon at every moment
is practically impossible, but there is the tendency of
adapting the models so that it is taken into account.
2. The S-N diagrams represent the model of damage
accumulation process by uniform loading and must be used
here as well as in the model by variable loading.
3. The decrease of the endurance limit pursuant to the pre-load
to higher levels than this one has the consequence of small
stress levels contributing to the damaging process of the
cycles.
3. Proposed damage accumulation model
After taking into account the physical damage phenomenon, the
damage accumulation model should have the following
characteristics:
a) the use of the failure probability as measurement of damage;
b) employing the S-N (Wöhler) diagram as a simple and precise
model of the damage accumulation of the mechanical
components subjected to uniform cyclic loading;
c) considering the pre-load influence by modifying the current
calculus stress.
The cycle numbers equating principle by skipping from a stress
level to another is presented in figure 5. For this purpose the S-N
curves modelled without inflexion point conforming to the ESOPE
method (NF A 03-405:1991) are used.
There are numerous other known functions - excepting the Basquin
one - that can be used to modelling S-N curves, see table 1. The
following symbols are used in this table: σ - stress; σD – endurance
limit; N – cycle number; A, B, C, m0 – adjustable parameters.
These functions with more parameters offer a better approximation
of the experimental points than the Basquin function. The authors
of this paper recommend the use of Stromayer and Weibull
functions, because these are easily used and describe correctly the
lower part of the S-N curve family, where the highest stress during
the gear operation there are.
Conforming to Weibull (1961) and the French norm (NF A 03-
405:1991) the standard deviation of the endurance is constant
regardless of cycle number. Inoue (1994) has made the same inflexion of secondary S-N curves imposes the need to change the
observation for the teeth root bending. Consequently, the family of shape of these ones in the domain above endurance limit.
S-N curves is easily modelled by translating the median curve by a As a result of this analysis, a new method is proposed by the
distance proportional to the standard deviation and the normal authors - to simulate the damaging effect of increasing the number
distribution quantile. of cycles using the increase in the calculated stress instead of the
step-by-step decrease of the endurance limit. This is described by
σ σ the following expression that gives the corrected stress σ c
dependent upon the current stress σ :
σ4 1 4 Pr σ D ,50%
σc =σ + ⋅ , (2)
σ1  
4 B
S-N σ
1+ A⋅ 
curves  σ D ,50% 
σ3 3 5  
σ5 2
where Pr is the failure probability, assimilated to the accumulated
σ2 damaging degree, σ D,50% represents the medium endurance limit
and the coefficients A and B are material dependent. It is noted
that this proposed formula modifies the stress in the region of
endurance limit of the S-N curves family.

t N1 N'3 N4 N'2 N'1 N3 N2 N5 n 4. Application

a) b) For the purpose of testing the proposed calculus method, the
results obtained by this method were compared with:
Figure 5. Cycles equating principle by skip from a stress level • experimental results obtained with block program loading;
to another:
• results of calculus by other methods.
a) temporal stress variation; b) cycle numbers equating and
The experiment was carried out on case carburised toothed wheel
failure probability accumulation on S-N (Wöhler) diagram
(made up 18 MoCrNi 13 STAS 791-88) on a hydropulse testing
machine using the loading block program given in table 2.
Table 1. Expressions used for S-N curves modelling (Weibull, 1961)
Table 2. The structure of loading block program
№ Author Expression
Block
Size
1 2 3 4 5 6
Stress
1 Basquin 1910] σ = C ⋅ N −m0 [MPa]
527 570 610 570 527 495
Cycle
1000 100 80 100 1000 2000
number
2 Stromayer 1914] (σ − σ D ) = C ⋅ N − m0

The obtained experimental points and the calculated durability

3 Weibull 1949 (σ − σ D ) = C ⋅ (N + B )−m0
e −C ⋅(σ −σ D )
m0
4 Bastenaire 1957 N = A⋅
σ −σ D
Besides the advantage of calculus simplicity, the described cycle
equating method permits the bloc programs processing and of the
sequences with quasi-random mixed cycles, taking into account the
stress cycles order and the differentiated damage accumulation
modelled with the S-N curves family.
The rupture probability (Pr) is used as a measure of the degree of
damage. Thus the predicted reliability distribution can be directly
obtained. The actual material damage can be characterized by the
failure producing probability (in this case rupture) but the damage
curves are represented in figure 6. The durability curves
(corresponding to a failure probability of 50%) are calculated:
a) on one hand - using the most used damage accumulation
models namely: Palmgren - Miner, Haibach, consequent
Miner rule, Gnilke and Schott (Haibach, 1989; Gnilke, 1980;
Schott, 1975);
b) and on the other hand - applying the proposed method.
The S-N curves used for determining the durability curves are
represented in figure 7. It is noted that there is a significant
difference between the two curve families especially in the
transition domain at the knee of the Basquin function (in
logarithmic coordinates). On the other hand this is the domain of
large stress levels that appear during the gear operation.
950
Proposed
900
method
σFlim [MPa]

has (as physical process inherent stochastic) variations in a 850

statistical population.
It is observed that the classical damage accumulation hypothesis 800 Schott
considered for the estimation of durability is associated with Consequent
750
failure probability (corresponding to the used S-N curve). Miner Rule
The case of cycles having smaller tensions than the medium 700
endurance limit by rupture is solved in two ways: Gnilke Palmgren-Miner
a) by the previously described method in which the inferior part 650
of S-N curve family is also used; 600
b) by simulation of step by step damaging capacity increasing
550 Experimental
of cycles inferior to median endurance limit.
As mentioned above, the decrease step by step of the endurance points
500 Haibach
limit was considered by a number of authors (Schott, 1975 and
1990; Gnilke, 1987; Haibach, 1989) by specific modifications of 450
the S-N curves (figure 4). On the other hand, the modelling without 4
2·10 5·104 105 5·105 106 N [cycles]
Figure 6. Durability curves determined by classical and proposed
method for the loading block program given in table 2
 800
σFlim [MPa] b) the method we propose produces a calculated durability
750 Pr=90% curve with results closer to the experimental average due to
use of a more accurate S-N curves model;
700 c) in the low domain of the S-N curves family the durability
lines are spaced out more;
650 d) the durability values calculated by the classical methods are
displaced towards the smaller values. This can be explained
600 by the use of S-N curves modelled using the Basquin function
describing incorrectly the experimental dates in the knee
550 area (see Deckelmann, 1990);
e) the distribution calculated using the method we propose is
500
Pr=50% asymptotic to endurance limit and the transition is without
discontinuities (very important in practical applications).
450 This aspect is in agreement with the experimental results
Pr=10%
400 4 presented by Osterman (1971);
5
2·10 10 106 N [cycles] 107 f) the curves determined by classical methods present great
discontinuities caused by the calculated durability skip when
Figure 7. S-N (Wöhler) curves used for durability calculus
a cycle block is taken into account by exceeding the
modeled by Weibull function with ESOPE method;
endurance limit. These distributions have a sudden skip to
modeled by Basquin function.
infinity but below the endurance limit the durability is
It is interesting a new analysis using a block program adopted by infinite.
other authors. The block program used by Haibach, (1989) and
Yang (1989) (table 3) has as particularity numerous (and large) 5. Conclusions
loading blocks situated close to and below the endurance limit; 1. A model of damage accumulation process based on the
consequently, this block program differs in comparison with the physical aspects analysis of damage is proposed.
previous one indicated in the table 2. 2. The damage accumulation model uses the rupture probability
The durability curves by different methods using the bloc program as damage measure, equates the cycle numbers (by skipping
indicated in the table 3 are represented in the figure 8. from a stress level to another) using the S-N curves family
The following conclusions may be established by analysis of these modelled without inflexion point and modifies the cycle
figures: damaging effect dependent upon the accumulated damage.
a) in the domain of short durability all used calculus methods 3. The model has been applied to two stress spectra (presented
produce close results; as block programs) resulting the durability distributions.
These ones have been compared with the distributions
Table 3. The block program used for determining of durability calculated with classical theories and with experimental
curves presented in figure 8 results (for a stress level with the first spectrum). One would
Block see a better approach of the experimental results, the absence
Size of the durability distributions’ discontinuity and their shape in
1 2 3 4 5 6
Relative concordance with the experimental results from literature.
0.827 0.925 1 0.925 0.827 0.710
stress
Cycle 6. References
680 70 9 70 680 5000 DECKELMANN, G. Lebensdauervorbensage dynamisch
number
Block beanspruchter metallischer Bauteile unter Berücksichtigung des
Step gekrümmten Verlaufs der Wohlerlinien, Fortschritt-Berichte VDI,
7 8 9 10 11 12
Relative Reihe 5,Nr. 199, 1990.
0.592 0.475 0.358 0.475 0.592 0.710 GNILKE, W. Lebensdauerberechnung der Maschinenelemente,
stress
VEB-Verlag Technik, Berlin, 1980.
Cycle GNILKE, W., KALLENBERG, J. 1987. Entwicklung empirischer
23000 70000 30250 70000 23000 5000
number Schadensgleichungen, Maschinenbautechnik 36, Nr.2, 1987, 72-74.
0
HAIBACH, E. Betriebsfestigkeit: Verfahren und Daten zur
950 Bauteilberechnung, VDI-Verlag, Düsseldorf, 1989.
σF [MPa]

INOUE, K. a.o. Effects of surface condition on the bending

900 strength of carburized gear teeth, Proc. of the 1994 International
Gearing Conf., University of Newcastle upon Tyne, U.K., 138-188.
850 Palmgren-Miner
OSTERMAN, H. Verlauf der Lebensdauerlinie eines
Vergütungsstahls nach 8stufigen Programmversuch im Bereich
800
Consequent Miner Rule oberhalb von 107 Lastspielen, Materialprüf. 13, 11, 1971, 389-391.
750 SCHOTT, G. Vorschlag eines Verfahrens zur Berechnung der
Lebensdauer bei Mehrstufen - bzw. Kollektivbelastung,
700 Proposed Method Problemseminar "Verkstoffermüdung", Dresden, 1975.
SCHOTT, G. Lebensdauerberechnung mit Werkstoffermüdungs-
650 funktionen: Ermüdungsfestigkeit bei Mehrstufen-und
600 Schott Randombeanspruchungen, Deutscher Verlag für
Haibach Grundstoffindustrie, Leipzig, 1990.
550 WEIBULL, W. Fatigue Testing and Analysis of Results, Ed.
Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1961.
500 Gnilke YANG, Q. Zuverlässigkeit von Zahnradgetrieben, Diss., Ruhr-
Universität, Bochum, 1989.
450
DIN 3990:1987 Teil 3. Tragfähigkeitsberechnung von Stirnrädern.
3·105 106 107 108 109 N [cycles] Berechnung der Zahnfußtragfähigkeit, 1987.
Figure 8. Durability curves determined by classical and proposed
method for the loading block program given in table 3
NF A03-405 : 1991. Produits métalliques. Essais de fatigue.
Traitement statistique des données, 1991.