Gear mesh resonance and stiffness validated in calculation and experiment

The design of gearboxes is driven not only by requirements of load carrying capacity but also by the aim of low noise behaviour. Both targets are dependent on an exact estimation of the main gear mesh resonance frequency already at design state. Together with the gear mesh excitation the dynamic overload and the noise emission may be taken into account in the gear mesh layout. The mesh stiffness is of central influence on these design decisions. Various approaches exist to calculate and simulate the resulting stiffness in the mesh of cylindrical gears. These theoretical approaches range from standard methods to complex numerical algorithms. In this paper the background of some of these methods is shown. The derivation of current standard methods is documented. To support the decision, which method of what complexity has to be selected to design adequate gear behaviour, experimental results are shown to support the validity of the design.