Analytical Predictions for the Transmission Error Excitation in Various Multiple-Mesh Gear-Trains

Transmission error has long been considered the primary exciter of gear whine noise. Previous work has resulted in the development of an analytical procedure for contact analysis of gear meshing based on plate deflection models. This procedure has been demonstrated to give good accuracy while being much less computationally intensive than finite element models. This paper extends this procedure to predict the load distribution and transmission error in multiple-mesh gear-trains. The model takes into account the effect of the load distribution at one mesh, on the load distribution and transmission error on the other meshes. The local compliance at the meshes is calculated and the kinematic constraints are used to determine the contact points. The equations of contact are linearized and solved using a modified simplex algorithm. The effect of the ‘phasing’ of the meshes is also considered. Application areas of this analysis procedure include idler gears, planetary gear-trains and split-path transmissions.Copyright © 2003 by ASME