Elastohydrodynamic Lubrication Characteristics of Spiral Bevel Gear Subjected to Shot Peening Treatment

High speed and heavy load put forward demanding requirements for the bending strength of spiral bevel gear. Shot peening, as a technological method, can greatly improve the bending strength of gear. During shot peening, a large number of subtle projectiles bombard the tooth surface of spiral bevel gear at an extremely high speed, which makes the latter produce plastic deformation and strengthened layer. Serving as the bombarded target, spiral bevel gear inevitably leads to the change of tooth surfaces microstructure. This paper aims at revealing the coupling law between microstructure and lubrication characteristics and establishing a reasonable model that can describe the tooth surface microstructure of shot peened spiral bevel gear. Besides, this paper brings insight into the lubrication characteristics of shot peened spiral bevel gears. Based on the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) theory, a comparative research on tooth surface lubrication characteristics has been conducted by various microscopic morphologies in this study.