International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology,

Vol. 3, No.6, 2011

Determination of Stress Concentration Factor in Spur
Gears using Finite Element Analysis.

Ramana Podugu
1
and J. Suresh Kumar
2
1
Research Scholar, department of Mechanical Engg. JNTUH, Hyderabad, AP, India
ramana.p755@gmail.com

2
Associate Professor, Mechanical Engineering department ,JNTUH, Hyderabad, AP, India

Abstract

Stress concentration factor plays an important role in designing any machine component. It is very
important for the engineer to be aware of the effects of stress raisers such as notches, holes or sharp
corners in design work. A geometrical discontinuity in a body, such as a hole or a notch results in a
non uniform stress distribution at the vicinity of the discontinuity. At the regions near the cross-
section like holes, notches, shoulders etc., the stress will be higher than the average stress. Thus, a
stress concentration occurs at the discontinuity. These discontinuities are very dangerous and lead
to failure if the body is subjected to any fluctuating loads further. So, it is very much essential to
analyze the stress concentration factors for critical applications like spur gears. Stress
Concentration Factors are most significant at the root fillet of spur gears as it gives rise to localized
stress. In this paper, it is briefly discussed about stress determination of stress concentration factors
at the root fillet of spur gears using theoretical approach as well as finite element analysis
techniques. FEM technique like cyclic symmetric is used for the spur gear tooth analysis. An
attempt was made to validate the FEA results with theoretical calculations and found good
agreement between FEA and Theoretical calculations


Keywords: spur gear, stress concentration factor, FEA, Cyclic symmetry, Convergence

1. Introduction

Gear is a machine element used to transmit motion and power between rotating shafts by means of
progressive Engagement of projections called teeth. Gears are classified according to the relative
position of the axes of the Shaft, type of gearing, peripheral velocity of the gears and position of teeth
on gear surface. Stress concentration effects in machine parts and structures can arise from internal
holes or voids created in the casting or forging process, from excessively sharp corners or fillets at the
shoulders of stepped shafts, or even from punch or stamp marks left during layout work or during
inspection of parts. A discontinuity such as a circular, circumferential groove is a stress raiser. The
effects of stress raisers are usually given in terms of a stress concentration factor, K, which is the factor
by which the stress at the considered discontinuity is raised over the nominal stress in the area of the
discontinuity.
Stress risers are main reason for the material damage and ultimately leads to material failure by
fracture. Stress concentration factors are determined by the methods like 1. Theory of Elasticity 2.
Photo Elasticity 3. The Grid Method 4. Brittle Coating Method 5. Strain Gauge Method 6.Flow
Analogy Method and 7. Finite Element method [1].
December Issue Page 78 of 85 ISSN 2229 5216
International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology



Gear teeth are similar to cantilever beams. P is assumed to be acting along the line of action as
shown in fig (1). This load P may be resolved in two components: a rotational component F, tending to
break the tooth by bending and a force N =P tan () tending to separate the gears of the set to produce a
compressive stress in the tooth[2].

Wilfred Lewis developed the basic model for bending stress in gear teeth in 1892 [3]. In his
analysis, Lewis considered a gear tooth to be a loaded cantilever beam with a force applied to
the tip of the gear. He did calculations for finding the strength of the spur gear by taking the
following assumptions:
1. The load is applied to the tip of a gear tooth;
2. Only the tangential component of the force will be a f actor {the radial component
is neglected)
3. The load is distributed uniformly across the entire face width of the gear,
4. Forces due to tooth sliding friction are negligible; and
5. No stress concentration factors present in the tooth fillet.
The Lewis equation for the tooth bending stress is expressed as:

FxY
FtxDp
= o
------------------------------------------------- (1)
Where Ft is the tangential load on the tooth, Dp is the diametric pitch, f is the gear face
width, and Y is the Lewis form factor based on the geometry of the tooth. The point of
application of the load is described by the pressure angle of the applied load at the tooth
surface, ().
In 1940, Dolan and Broghamer considered stress concentration factor for the calculation of tooth
bending stress[4]. They examined various types of gear teeth and determined the location and the
magnitude of the maximum stresses which occur in the tooth fillets using photo elastic methods.

They developed the relation for stress concentration factor curve fit as follows.
December Issue Page 79 of 85 ISSN 2229 5216
International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology


M
c
L
f
c
h
T
x
P
T
H Kf
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
+ = -------------------------------------- (2)
Where, Tc is the tooth thickness at the critical section, Pf is the minimum radius of curvature of the
fillet curve, and h is the height of the Lewis parabola.
Here H, L and M in terms of pitch circle pressure angles [5]
) ( 545 . 0 261 . 0
) ( 492 . 0 321 . 0
) ( 436 . 0 331 . 0
|
|
|
+ =
=
=
M
L
H

The most comprehensive source of stress concentration factors for commonly encountered
geometries has been compiled by Peterson [6].Stress concentration factors Kt for the tension side of a
gear tooth fillet with a 14.5
o
and 20
o
pressure angle can be found from the fig (2) and fig (3).



Fig 2 . Stress concentration factors for the tension side of a gear tooth fillet with a 14.5 deg
(photo elastic data of Dolan and Broghamer 1942)
December Issue Page 80 of 85 ISSN 2229 5216
International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology




Fig 3 . Stress concentration factors for the tension side of a gear tooth f illet with a 20 deg
(photo elastic data of Dolan and Broghamer 1942)
In this paper, FEM techniques are used for the finding stress at the gear tooth . These
techniques can be applied for any minor change in the problem, which reduces the cost and time
required for manufacturing and testing of several prototypes

2. Finite element computation
2.1 Geometry
The gear tooth parameters are listed in table 1. As shown in Fig. 4, the gear tooth is developed by
involute method and 3D model which is used for the analysis is created by solid works software. One
tooth of the spur gear is considered for the FEA analysis since it is cyclically symmetry model.

Table 1: Gear tooth parameters

Gear tooth parameters
Module (m) 6.35
No of Teeth 12
Pressure angle 14.5Deg
December Issue Page 81 of 85 ISSN 2229 5216
International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology

Addendum 1
Dedendum 1.25
Pitch circle diameter(mm) 76.2
Base circle diameter(mm) 71.6
Face width thickness(mm) 12.7
Bore diameter (mm) 9.102
Radius of fillet (mm) 1.589
Force (N) 2500




Fig 4. 3D Model of spur gear teeth
2.2 Mesh
In this FE model a higher order element, solid 186 is used for the entire model. This element is a 20-
node element [10]. The information of the solid 186 element is shown in Fig 4. Meshing model of gear
tooth is shown in fig 6.The total no of nodes and elements are 321706 and 75744 respectively.
Elements were sufficiently refined until results of the analysis became mesh independent. Adequate
meshing is applied to the gear tooth to validate results accurately. Very fine mesh is applied to root
fillet to get the closure margin difference between SMX and SMXB.


Fig 5. Solid 186 element Fig 6 Mesh component
December Issue Page 82 of 85 ISSN 2229 5216
International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology

2.3 Loading and boundary conditions
The loading and boundary conditions are illustrated in fig 6. Force is applied along the line of action.
This force is resolved in to tangential and normal forces .Tangential force is applied in the form of
pressure to the tooth as shown in fig (7) to minimize stress singularity problems, Symmetric boundary
conditions are applied at the cut bodies and Fixity is maintained at bottom face of the tooth.


Fig 7. Boundary and loading conditions
2.4 Material data
Stainless steel material is chosen as material for this spur gear .The material data is shown in table 2.

Table 2. Material properties

Material for Spur Gear
Density Young's modulus Poison ratio Yield stress Ultimate stress
Kg/m3 Mpa Mpa Mpa
7750 193000 0.3 207 586

4. Results and discussions

In this paper the stress at the root fillet is evaluated using lewis equation. And stress
concentration factor is calculated based on formulas and charts in Petersons stress
concentration factor. The stress at the root fillet is found as 213 Mpa. The result plot from the
ansys software is shown in fig (8). The maximum stress at the root fillet is found as 213 Mpa.
Stress convergence was made to get accurate results. The SMX and SMXB values are shown
in fig (9).The stress values at the root fillet are evaluated based on mesh convergence as
shown in fig(9). Very good agreement between FEA and theoretical calculation was
observed.


December Issue Page 83 of 85 ISSN 2229 5216
International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology




Fig 8. Von-misses stress and principal stress plot

Fig 9. Stress convergence plot at the root fillet.
The results from both theoretical calculations and FEA are listed in table 3.
Table 3: Results comparison

S.No Theoretical calculations (MPa)
FEA Results
(MPa)
Error in
%
Stress at the root fillet 214 213 0.47

From the Table 3,It was found good agreement between theoretical and FEM results. ANSYS is
having capacity of enforcing cyclic symmetry compatibility conditions for each nodal-diameter
solution via coupling and/or constraint equations(CEs) connecting the nodes on the low- and high-edge
components on the basic and duplicate sectors. During the solution stage of a cyclic symmetry analysis,
ANSYS automatically rotates the nodal coordinate systems of all nodes on the low and high sector
edges to be parallel with the cyclic coordinate system. The expansion of the cyclic symmetry for stress
and displacement plots are shown in fig (10)
December Issue Page 84 of 85 ISSN 2229 5216
International Journal of Advances in Science and Technology




Fig 10. Cyclic expansion plot for stress and displacement

5. Conclusions:

Stress concentration factor plays an important role in designing any machine component. It is very
important for the engineer to be aware of the effects of stress raisers such as notches, holes or sharp
corners in his/her design work. FEA is a very accurate and quick solution for finding stress
concentration factors in mechanical structures. In this paper, it was observed a good agreement
between FEA and Theoretical calculations .It is useful to guide design engineers to determine the stress
concentration factor for spur gears .


10. References

[1] Joseph Edward Shingly (1986), Mechanical Engineering Design, First metric edition, McGraw
Hill, New York
[2] Pandya shah Machine design ,charotar public house, fifteenth edition,2004
[3] Lewis, W., "Investigation of the Strength of Gear Teeth," Proceedings of the Engineers Club,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1892.
[4] Dolan, T. J. & Broghamer, E. L., "A Photo elastic Study of Stresses in Gear Tooth Fillets,"
University of Illinois, Engineering Experiment Station, Bulletin No. 335, 1942.
[5] M. Savage and K.L Rubadeux, H.H. Coe Bending Strength Model for Internal Spur Gear Teeth
31st Joint Propulsion Conference and Exhibit cosponsored by AIAA, ASME, SAE and ASEE , San
Diego, California, July 10-12, 1995.
[6] Petersons "Stress concentration factors, walter D.Pilkey,etc third edition, John Wiley &sons,inc,
,2008
[7] Ansys ,help





December Issue Page 85 of 85 ISSN 2229 5216