A nite element method for 3D static and dynamic

contact/impact analysis of gear drives

Tengjiao Lin
a
, H. Ou
b,
*
, Runfang Li
a
a
State Key Lab of Mechanical Transmission, Chongqing University, Chongqing 400044, PR China
b
School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Queens University Belfast, Belfast BT9 5AH, UK
Received 11 May 2005; received in revised form 13 September 2006; accepted 20 September 2006
Abstract
In this paper, an approach for mesh generation of gear drives at any meshing position is presented and an automatic modeling pro-
gram for tooth mesh analysis is developed. Based on the derivation of a exibility matrix equation in the contact region, a nite element
method for 3D contact/impact problem is proposed. Using this method, tooth load distribution and mesh stiness results are derived
under static loading during meshing process. This method is also used to simulate the gear behavior under dynamic loading conditions.
The dynamic responses of the gear drives are obtained under the conditions of both the initial speed and the sudden load being applied.
The inuence of the backlash on impact characteristics of the meshing teeth is analyzed.
2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Gear drive; Impact; Dynamic response; Contact problem; Finite element method
1. Introduction
Gear drives transmit motion and power by tooth mesh.
Mostly in the form of involute proles, gear tooth mesh is a
complex process involving, e.g. multi-tooth engagement,
multi-point contact and varying load conditions. To
achieve improved static and dynamic characteristics of gear
drives and enhanced load carrying capacity and reliability,
accurate determination of the tooth load distribution, mesh
stiness as well as the deformation and stress of tooth face
is an important part in gear drive design. Owing to the
manufacturing and assembly errors and elastic deforma-
tion of loaded gears, vibration and noise are generated par-
ticularly during the approach and recess of the tooth
meshing. Backlash causes intermittent impact to the mesh-
ing gears. The mesh impact is also present when the gear
drive is under the conditions of the sudden loading and
change of speed. Such mesh impact caused by the backlash
and due to the approach and recess of tooth meshing has a
detrimental eect on dynamic characteristics of a gear
system.
In recent years the research on the static and dynamic
contact problems of gear drives has been reported by many
researchers. Gosselin et al. [1] analyzed the contact stress
and displacement of the line contact condition in spur gears
and the point contact condition in bevel gears by nite ele-
ment method in comparison with the results from analyti-
cal formulations. Litvin et al. [2] developed computer
programs that integrate computerized design, tooth con-
tact analysis and automatic modeling and nite element
simulation of a new type of helical gear drives. The same
approach has been applied by Litvin and his colleagues
to many other forms of face gears, which result in signi-
cant weight reduction used in helicopter transmissions [3
6]. Similar approaches have been used to carry out tooth
contact analysis and stress analysis of gear drives by Braucr
[7], Zanzi and Pedrero [8] and Guingand et al. [9]. Pimsarn
and Kazerounian [10] presented a new pseudo-interference
0045-7825/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.cma.2006.09.014
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 28 9097 4102; fax: +44 28 9066 1729.
E-mail address: h.ou@qub.ac.uk (H. Ou).
www.elsevier.com/locate/cma
Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728
stiness estimation method to evaluate the equivalent mesh
stiness and the mesh load in a gear system. The results
showed a good agreement between the proposed mesh sti-
ness method and nite element contact analysis.
There has been ongoing interest on nite element based
computational methods for dynamic contact problems [11
17]. Dierent formulations have been developed to solve
the dierential equations of motion of frictional dynamic
contact/impact problems and corresponding procedures
are veried to a number of benchmark problems such as
the contact of two elastic rods or wheels. Little research
has been reported on nite element based methods to inves-
tigate the dynamic contact/impact problems of gear drives.
Bajer and Demkowicz [18] developed a method to simulate
a general class of dynamic contact/impact problems for
systems such as gear drives with the consideration of
momentum and total energy. Based on the proposed for-
mulation, they developed a 2D parallel nite element sim-
ulator to calculate the dynamic stresses of a planetary gear
train. Whilst this is a new step for dynamic modeling of
complex mechanical systems such as gear drives, it is
worthwhile to investigate the detailed dynamic behavior
of gear drives under the conditions such as impact loading,
change of speed and the eect of backlash.
In recent years, we have been working on nite element
based methods for dynamic contact/impact problems and
particularly their applications to gear drives [1921]. The
focus of the work has been on the development of ecient
approaches for mesh generation of dierent tooth proles
and the prediction of dynamic contact/impact behaviors
of gear drives under certain loading and initial conditions.
This paper outlines our recent work on this subject. In the
following sections, the basic theory used for mesh genera-
tion of gear drives is rst presented with an example given.
This is followed by the nite element formulation of static
and dynamic contact/impact problems for gear drives. To
verify the method and the program developed, a bench-
mark problem is evaluated. Finally detailed results and
evaluation of the dynamic contact/impact behaviors of
both a spur and a helical gear drives are presented. The
conclusions are given at the end of the paper.
2. Mesh generation of gear drives
Fig. 1 shows the global coordinate system yoz and the
rotational coordinate system y
1
o
1
z
1
, on which the centers
of shafts for the pinion and the gear are at points O
1
and
O, respectively. The tooth position shown in the yoz coor-
dinate system is the original position for generating tooth
face proles. The mesh generation method for each tooth
pair at certain rotational positions is presented as follows
[20].
2.1. Mesh generation of tooth end face
The mesh position of the pitch point is assumed to be
the initial position of the meshing gears. When the pinion
rotates an angle of w, the pressure angles of contact points
for the pinion and the gear can be expressed as
a
c1
= arctg(tga
/
t
w);
a
c2
= arctg[(N
1
N
2
r
b1
tga
c1
)=r
b2
[;
_
(1)
where a
/
t
is the meshing angle. N
1
N
2
is the length of mesh-
ing line. r
b1
and r
b2
are the base radii of the pinion and the
gear, respectively.
In the geometry of two meshing gears, the involute
equation on the end face of teeth can be given by
x
i0
= 0;
y
i0
= r
bk
cos k
i
= cos a
i
z
i0
= r
bk
sin k
i
= cos a
i
;
_

_
(k = 1; 2); (2)
where x
i0
, y
i0
, z
i0
are the coordinates of the discrete node i
on the tooth surface. a
i
and k
i
are the pressure angle and
the central semiangle of node i on the tooth surface,
respectively.
2.2. Mesh generation of tooth width
The mesh discretization process on the tooth width may
be divided into two parts. The discrete nodes along tooth
width in the non-contact region are uniformly distributed,
and the x-coordinates of discrete nodes in the contact
region may be determined by the coordinates of the tooth
end face. The involute ank of helical gears and its inter-
secting line are illustrated in Fig. 2. Point C is the intersect-
ing point of contact line KK
/
and certain cross-section S
along the tooth width.
Let a
k
be the pressure angle at the start point of the con-
tact line. a
c
is the pressure angle at discrete node C and b
b
is
the helix angle of the base circle. The x-coordinate of node
C can be given as follows:
x
c
= AN
2
(CB KN
2
)=KN
2
= r
b2
(tga
c
tga
k
)=tgb
b
; (3)
where KN
2
= r
b2
tga
k
, CB = r
b2
tga
c
, AN
2
= r
b2
tga
k
/tgb
b
.
Hence the coordinates of discrete nodes of each cross-
section on the tooth width can be obtained
1
a
1 a
r
1 b
r
1
r
1
N
2
N
1
O
O
2
r
2 b
r
a2
r

2 1
,
c c

y
1
y
1
z z

T
Fig. 1. Global and rotational coordinate systems of a gear train.
T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728 1717
x
i
= x
c
;
y
i
= y
i0
cos h
k
z
i0
sin h
k
;
z
i
= y
i0
sin h
k
z
i0
cos h
k
;
_

_
(4)
where h
k
is the turn angle between the cross-section S and
the tooth end face
h
k
= x
i
tgb
b
=r
bk
(k = 1; 2):
2.3. Mesh generation of tooth root llet
Rack cutter and wheel cutter are common gear cutting
tools. If a rack cutter such as hobbing cutter is adopted,
the tooth root curve is the equidistant line of the prolate
involute as shown in Fig. 3.
For the rack cutter with two round edges, the machining
parameters of the tool are dened by
a = h
+
at
m
t
c
+
t
m
t
r
o
;
b = pm
t
=4 h
+
at
m
t
tga
t
r
o
cos a
t
;
r
o
= c
+
t
m
t
=(1 sin a
t
):
_

_
(5)
For the rack cutter with only a single round edge, the
machining parameters of the tool can be dened by
a = h
+
at
m
t
c
+
t
m
t
r
o
;
b = pm
t
=2;
r
o
= (pm
t
4h
+
at
m
t
tga
t
)=(4 cos a
t
);
_

_
(6)
where r
o
is the radius of the tool. h
+
at
and c
+
t
are the adden-
dum coecient and radial clearance coecient. x
t
is a mod-
ication coecient. m
t
and a
t
are the transverse module
and pressure angle of the gears, respectively.
The equation for the root curve on the end face can be
written as
x
i0
= 0;
y
i0
= r
p
cos u
i

a
1
sin a
/
ti
r
o
_ _
sin(a
/
ti
u
i
);
z
i0
= r
p
sin u
i

a
1
sin a
/
ti
r
o
_ _
cos(a
/
ti
u
i
);
_

_
(7)
where r
p
is the pitch radius of gear; a
/
ti
is a parameter be-
tween a
t
and 90.
a
1
= a x
t
m
t
; u
i
= (a
1
ctga
/
ti
b)=r:
If a wheel cutter such as slotting cutter is adopted, the
tooth root curve will be the equidistant line of the prolate
epicycloid as shown in Fig. 4.
For the wheel cutter with two round edges, the machin-
ing parameters of the tool are dened by
r
o
=
c
+
t
m
t
1 sin a
ac
;
O
c
C
o
= r
c
h
+
at
m
t
c
+
t
m
t
r
o
;
b
/
=
p
2z
c
(inva
ac
inva
t
) sin
1
r
o
cos a
ac
O
c
C
o
:
_

_
(8)
For the wheel cutter with a single round edge, the machin-
ing parameters of tool can be dened by
2
N
K
B
1
o
1
N
2
N
1
N
C K
b

2
o
involute flank
base cylinder B1
base cylinder B2
A
x
y
z
Fig. 2. Contact line of meshing gears.
r
t t
m x
t

0
r 0
c
P
1
a
b
pitch circle of gear
z
y o
p
r
n
=
t
a
pitch line of tool
n

Fig. 3. Tooth root llet generated by rack cutter.

t

pc
r
0
r
0
c
P
pitch circle of tool
c
o
n
n
z
y
=
t

t
t
p
r
o

Fig. 4. Tooth root llet generated by wheel cutter.

1718 T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728
r
o
=
r
ac
tgh
a
cos a
ac
sin a
ac
tgh
a
;
c
+
t
m
t
= r
o
r
ac
tgh
a
tg(a
ac
h
a
)
r
ac
cos a
ac
(1= cos h
a
1)
cos(a
ac
h
a
)
;
O
c
C
o
= r
c
h
+
at
m
t
c
+
t
m
t
r
o
;
b
/
=
p
z
c
;
_

_
(9)
where r
o
, z
c
and r
c
are the radius, number of teeth and ref-
erence radius of the tool, respectively. r
ac
and a
ac
are the ra-
dius and the pressure angle of the addendum circle of the
tool.
h
a
= p=2z
c
(inva
ac
inva):
The equation of the root curve on the end face can be writ-
ten as
x
i0
= 0;
y
i0
= r
p
cos u
i

rpc sin b
i
cos(a
/
ti
b
i
)
r
o
_ _
sin(a
/
ti
u
i
);
z
i0
= r
p
sin u
i

rpc sin b
i
cos(a
/
ti
b
i
)
r
o
_ _
cos(a
/
ti
u
i
);
_

_
(10)
where a
p
is the engagement angle of the slotting cutter.
a
/
ti
is a parameter between a
p
and 90.
u
i
=
z
c
z
(b
i
b
/
);
b
i
= cos
1
r
pc

r
2
pc
r
2
pc
sec
2
a
/
ti
sec
2
a
/
ti
tg
2
a
/
ti
O
c
C
o
2
_
O
c
C
o
sec
2
a
/
ti
:
2.4. Mesh adjustment
Using the above method, the discrete coordinates of the
pinion and the gear are generated at their original positions
as shown in Fig. 1. It is necessary to transform the discrete
coordinates of the pinion and gear to their meshing posi-
tions. The transformation equations for the pinion coordi-
nates may be given by
x
i
y
i
z
i
_

_
_

_
=
1 0 0
0 cos h
1
sin h
1
0 sin h
1
cos h
1
_

_
_

_
x
i1
y
i1
z
i1
_

_
_

0
0
a
1
_

_
_

_
: (11)
The transformation equations for gear coordinates can be
written as
x
i
y
i
z
i
_

_
_

_
=
1 0 0
0 cos h
2
sin h
2
0 sin h
2
cos h
2
_

_
_

_
x
i2
y
i2
z
i2
_

_
_

_
; (12)
where a
1
is the center distance between the meshing gears.
x
i1
, y
i1
and z
i1
are the coordinates of the pinion at its origi-
nal position, and x
i2
, y
i2
and z
i2
are the coordinates of the
gear at its original position.
h
1
= 3p=2 (p=2 2x
1
tga
t
)=z
1
tga
t
a
t
tga
c1
a
/
t
;
h
2
= p=2 (p=2 2x
2
tga
t
)=z
2
tga
t
a
t
tga
c2
a
/
t
:
2.5. Boundary conditions
For the static contact analysis of gears, the xed dis-
placement constraint is applied on the boundary surface
of the gear and the radial constraint is dened on the
boundary surface of the pinion. A tangential distributed
load is applied uniformly on the pinion surface as shown
in Fig. 5. The distributed forces applied on the pinion
can be obtained by
q =
T
r
s
l
s
b
; (13)
Fig. 5. Boundary constraint and load condition of gears.
Table 1
Geometric parameters of the helical gear drive
Geometric parameters Pinion Gear
Normal module, m
n
3.5 mm 3.5 mm
Number of teeth, Z 44 88
Normal pressure angle, a
n
20 20
Helix angle, b 13.5 13.5
Face width, b 50 mm 50 mm
Fig. 6. Computation model of the helical gear drive. (a) Solid model and
(b) nite element mesh.
T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728 1719
where T is the torque applied on the surface of the pinion.
r
s
and l
s
denote the radius and the arc length of the loaded
surface of the pinion, respectively. b is the tooth width.
2.6. Numerical example
An automatic mesh generation procedure for gear drives
is developed. As an example, the geometric parameters of a
helical gear drive are shown in Table 1. Fig. 6a shows the
solid model of the helical gear drive and the nite element
mesh for dynamic contact/impact analysis is illustrated in
Fig. 6b.
3. Governing equations of contact/impact problems
3.1. Flexibility matrix equation of contact region
The dynamic contact model of two bodies is shown in
Fig. 7, in which O-xyz is the global coordinate system
and o-nts is the local coordinate system dened only on
the local contact surface, where subscript n refers to the
normal direction to the contact surface and subscripts t, s
refer to the two tangential directions on the contact
surface. Assume that N is the matrix of shape functions
and u
e(t)
, v
e(t)
and a
e(t)
are the vectors of nodal displace-
ment, velocity and acceleration at time (t), respectively.
The displacement, velocity and acceleration elds can be
described as
u
(t)
= Nu
e(t)
;
v
(t)
= Nv
e(t)
= N _ u
e(t)
;
a
(t)
= Na
e(t)
= Nu
e(t)
;
_

_
(14)
where _ u
e(t)
; u
e(t)
are the rst and second derivatives of
the nodal displacement vector.
Employing the principle of virtual work incorporating
the inertia and damping forces as a part of the total exter-
nal forces, the dAlembert principle of the dynamic contact
problem of two bodies may be derived as follows [22]:
m
i
a
i(t)
c
i
v
i(t)
k
i
u
i(t)
= p
i(t)
R
i(t)
(i X
1
; X
2
); (15)
where m
i
, c
i
, k
i
are the mass, damping and stiness matrices
of the two bodies, respectively. p
i(t)
, R
i(t)
are the applied
load vector and the contact force vector of the two bodies.
u
i(t)
, v
i(t)
, a
i(t)
are the displacement, velocity and accelera-
tion vectors of the two bodies, respectively.
The Newmark direct integration method is adopted to
solve Eq. (15). In this method, it is assumed that
v
(tDt)
= v
(t)
[(1 d)a
(t)
da
(tDt)
[Dt; (16)
u
(tDt)
= u
(t)
v
(t)
Dt
1
2
a
_ _
a
(t)
aa
(tDt)
_ _
Dt
2
; (17)
where a and d are adjustable parameters depending on
the integration accuracy and stability. When a P
0.25(0.5 + d)
2
and d P0.5, it is conrmed that the New-
mark method has unconditional stability [11,21]. a = 0.25
and d = 0.5 are used in this research. Substituting Eqs.
(16) and (17) into Eq. (15) forms the eective stiness ma-
trix equation of the dynamic contact/impact bodies, in
which only displacement vector u
i(t+Dt)
are present in the
equation and needs to be solved, i.e.
~
k
i
u
i(tDt)
= ~p
i(tDt)
R
i(tDt)
(i X
1
; X
2
); (18)
where
~
k
i
and ~p
i(tDt)
are the eective stiness matrix and
equivalent load vector, respectively.
~
k
i
= k
i

1
aDt
2
m
i

d
aDt
c
i
; (19)
~p
i(tDt)
= p
i(tDt)
m
i
1
aDt
2
u
i(t)

1
aDt
v
i(t)

1
2a
1
_ _
a
i(t)
_ _
c
i
d
aDt
u
i(t)

d
a
1
_ _
v
i(t)

d
2a
1
_ _
a
i(t)
Dt
_ _
:
(20)
Due to the fact that the contact problem of gear drives
involves only a very small region in contact between the
pinion and the gear during the meshing process, the com-
putational iterations are far from ecient if the iterations
are carried out by solving Eq. (18). Instead a condensation
of Eq. (18) in the contact region of the meshing teeth is
conducted using a modied Cholesky factorization ap-
proach. Hence the eective exibility equation on the con-
tact surface of the two contact bodies can be derived as
follows:
~
f R
(t)
=

S
p(t)
e
0
; (21)
where
~
f is the eective exibility matrix;

S
p(t)
is the relative
displacement vector caused by equivalent applied load ~p
i(t)
on the contact surface; e
0
is the vector of the initial gap be-
tween contact node pairs.
To solve the dynamic contact/impact problems, the con-
tact force vector R
(t)
is obtained by Eq. (21) in each step of
time integration. Then the displacements, velocities and
accelerations of the two bodies are computed using Eqs.
(18), (16) and (17), accordingly.
For static contact problems of two bodies, one of the
contact bodies, e.g. X
1
in Fig. 7, may not have sucient
constraints. Thus the rigid body displacement vector u
r1
of body X
1
is considered to be unknown and the rigid body
motion and force equilibrium equations are used to solve
the rigid body displacement vector. The rigid body motion
equation of body X
1
is given as
) (t p
1

) (t R s
n
t 2

z
O
y
x
) (t R
o
Fig. 7. Dynamic contact model of two bodies.
1720 T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728
u
i1
= u
01
x r; (22)
where u
i1
is the displacement at any nodal position of body
X
1
due to rigid body motion; x and r are angular displace-
ment and position vectors of body X
1
, respectively. The
force and moment equilibrium equations of body X
1
can
be written as

iX
1
(p
i
R
i
) = 0;

iX
1
[M
0
1
(p
i
) M
0
1
(R
i
)[ = 0;
_

_
(23)
where M
0
1
(p
i
) and M
0
1
(R
i
) are moment vectors of the
external and contact force components of body X
1
,
respectively.
Thus the expanded form of the eective exibility matrix
Eq. (21) is given as follows:
~
f f
d
f
e
0
_ _
R
u
r1
_ _
=

S
p
e
0
p
r1
_ _
; (24)
where f
d
and f
e
are the transformation matrices due to the
rigid body motion and force equilibrium of body X
1
,
respectively; p
r1
is a force component vector of body X
1
.
Depending upon the constraint condition of body X
1
of
the contact problem, displacement components of the re-
quired degrees of freedom at certain positions of body X
1
are used to form the rigid body displacement vector u
r1
.
For the gear drive case that the gear is fully constrained
and the pinion has only one rotational degree of freedom
under torque T as shown in Fig. 1, one additional angular
displacement about O
1
and one force equilibrium equation
are added in Eq. (24). Therefore the same procedure for
solving the exibility matrix Eq. (21) in the contact region
and the global stiness matrix equation may be applied for
the static contact problems.
3.2. Treatment of impenetrability condition
To implement the impenetrability condition in contact
region, three possible contact conditions are dened as
stick, sliding and separation. In the stick condition, a con-
tact nodal pair has no relative motion in both the normal
and tangential directions in the local coordinate system
(o-nts) on the contact surface, i.e. the contact nodal pair
sticks together. In the sliding condition, relative motion is
allowed only in the tangential direction between the pair
of contact nodes while the stick condition remains in the
normal direction. The separation condition indicates that
the pair of contact nodes is separate. Using the Coulombs
friction model for the sliding condition, the impenetrability
condition for the three contact conditions may be devel-
oped as given in Table 2.
To ensure the correct impenetrability condition in solv-
ing Eq. (21) and to accommodate possible changes of con-
tact conditions in time integration, a set of criteria are
introduced as given in Table 3. As shown in the table for
an existing contact condition, a new contact condition
may be reached by evaluating the relative displacement
and contact force components in a contact nodal pair in
the local coordinate system (o-nts). Thus the converged
solution on the contact surface may be obtained quickly
by alternating and solving the exibility matrix equation
of the contact region, i.e. Eq. (21). As the eective exibility
matrix
~
f is derived by the assumption of the stick condition
for all the contact pairs of a contact/impact problem, the
alternation of Eq. (21) is straightforward as given by
(25)
where i, j, k are contact node pairs corresponding to the
contact conditions of stick, sliding and separation,
respectively.
3.3. Velocity and acceleration correction of intermittent
contact/impact
Since the Newmark direct integration method is pro-
posed for the continua of bodies of the contact/impact
problem, the velocities and accelerations of the contact
bodies are computed with the step-forward time integra-
tion using Eqs. (16) and (17). However, at the instance of
initial impact or release of contact, the direct integration
scheme for the velocity and acceleration results is no
longer valid due to the discontinuity of the contact pressure
and velocity as demonstrated in [11,14]. Hughes et al.
Table 2
Impenetrability conditions of contact nodal pairs
Contact
condition
Impenetrability conditions
Stick d

R
k1(t)
= d

R
k2(t)
= d

R
k(t)
; d~u
k2(t)
d~u
k1(t)
~e
k
= 0
(k = n; t; s)
Sliding d

R
n1(t)
= d

R
n2(t)
= d

R
n(t)
; d~u
n2(t)
d~u
n1(t)
~e
n
= 0
d

R
t1(t)
= d

R
t2(t)
= l sin h
s
[d

R
n(t)
[; d~u
t2(t)
d~u
t1(t)
= d
~
l
t(t)
d

R
s1(t)
= d

R
s2(t)
= l cos h
s
[d

R
n(t)
[; d~u
s2(t)
d~u
s1(t)
= d
~
l
s(t)
Separation d

R
k1(t)
= d

R
k2(t)
= 0; d~u
k2(t)
d~u
k1(t)
= d
~
l
k(t)
(k = n; s; t)
d

R
k1(t)
; d

R
k2(t)
; d~u
k1(t)
and d~u
k2(t)
(k = n, s, t) are the increment of the
contact force and displacement of two bodies in the k direction of the
local coordinate system (o-nts); ~e
k
(k = n; s; t) is the initial gap of the con-
tact node pairs in the k direction; l is the friction coecient; h
s
is the
angle between the sliding direction and the coordinate direction s;
d
~
l
k(t)
(k = n; s; t) is the gap increment of contact node pairs in the coor-
dinate direction k.
T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728 1721
developed a correction approach using a local wave
propagation analysis [11] and Taylor and Papadopoulos
developed a method for a priori satisfaction of the impene-
trability constraint and its rate forms by means of a Larg-
range multiplier formulation [14], whilst Chen and Yeh
proposed a set of correction formulas for velocity and accel-
eration based on the concept of equivalent nodal forces and
the area weighting factor of the contact element [13].
In this research, a similar approach to [13] is employed
for the correction of the velocity and acceleration at the
instance of initial impact and release of contact in the con-
tact region. The only simplication for the gear drive case
is that the density and the depth of the contact element are
the same for both the pinion and the gear. Assume v

i(tDt)
and a

i(tDt)
(i = 1; 2) are the velocity and acceleration of
the two bodies after correction. The superscripts n and t
denote the normal and tangential directions in the local
coordinate system (o-nts) for the nodes in the contact
region. If the current contact condition is stick, the correc-
tions of velocity and acceleration at the instant of contact
between the two bodies may be given by
v

i(tDt)
=
1
2
(v
1(tDt)
v
2(tDt)
);
a

i(tDt)
=
1
2
(a
1(tDt)
a
2(tDt)
):
_
(26)
When the current contact condition is sliding, the following
corrections may be used:
v
n
i(tDt)
=
1
2
(v
n
1(tDt)
v
n
2(tDt)
);
v
t
i(tDt)
= v
t
i(tDt)
l (v
n
1(tDt)
v
n
1(tDt)
);
a
n
i(tDt)
=
1
2
(a
n
1(tDt)
a
n
2(tDt)
);
a
t
i(tDt)
= a
t
i(tDt)
l (a
n
1(tDt)
a
n
1(tDt)
):
_

_
(27)
At the instant of separation or release of contact between
two bodies, the formulas of the correction are given by
v

i(tDt)
= v
i(tDt)

(1)
i
2
(v
1(tDt)
v
2(tDt)
);
a

i(tDt)
= a
i(tDt)

(1)
i
2
(a
1(tDt)
a
2(tDt)
):
_
_
_
(28)
Therefore in the iterative computation of the gear drive
contact/impact problem, the contact conditions, i.e. stick,
sliding or separation, are detected using the criteria in
Table 3. Necessary changes of the eective exibility matrix
Eq. (21) are made according to the criteria of impenetrabil-
ity conditions as given in Table 2. As the iterative compu-
tation of Eq. (21) in the contact region is also part of the
direct integration, in each time step the criteria of contact
conditions in Table 3 are used to check whether initial im-
pact or release of contact takes place in each contact nodal
pair. If such a condition of initial impact or release of con-
tact is detected the above correction formulas for the veloc-
ity and acceleration are used accordingly. Otherwise the
normal direct integration is performed for the rest of the
contact bodies.
3.4. Numerical example of dynamic contact/impact problem
In order to verify the proposed method, simulation of a
benchmark problem considering the center-to-center colli-
sion between two identical elastic bars is performed as
shown in Fig. 8. The time step is Dt = 2 10
7
s.
The impact time and contact pressure of two identical
bars can be expressed as [23]
t =
2l
c
w
;
r =
1
2
qc
w
v
0
;
_

_
(29)
where l is the length of the bars. c
w
is the velocity of elastic
wave, c
w
=

E=q
_
. Using Eq. (29) the impact time and con-
Table 3
Criteria for the change of contact conditions
Contact conditions Criteria for the change of contact conditions
Present Updated
Stick Separation

R
n1(t)
> 0
Stick

R
n1(t)
6 0;

R
2
t1(t)


R
2
s1(t)
_
6 l[

R
n1(t)
[
Sliding

R
n1(t)
6 0;

R
2
t1(t)


R
2
s1(t)
_
> l[

R
n1(t)
[
Sliding Separation

R
n1(t)
> 0
Stick

R
n1(t)
6 0; d

R
t1(t)
d
~
l
t(t)
< 0; d

R
s1(t)
d
~
l
s(t)
< 0
Sliding

R
n1(t)
6 0; d

R
t1(t)
d
~
l
t(t)
P0 or d

R
s1(t)
d
~
l
s(t)
P0
Separation Separation d~u
n2(t)
d~u
n1(t)
~e
n
> 0
Stick d~u
n2(t)
d~u
n1(t)
~e
n
6 0
m/s 0 . 1
0
= V
m 1 . 0
m 01 . 0
m 1 . 0
m 01 . 0
Poissons ratio
Youngs Modulus
Density
0 =
2 11
N/m 10 1 . 2 = E
3 3
kg/m 10 8 . 7 =
Fig. 8. Finite element model of two bars with initial velocity.
1722 T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728
tact pressure may be calculated to be t = 38.54 ls and
r = 20.24 MPa.
A comparison of the analytical and numerical solution
to the time history of the normal contact pressure and
velocity on the contact surface are shown in Figs. 9 and
10, where the solid lines represent the numerical results
and the dashed lines represent the analytical solution. It
can be seen that a good agreement of the two solutions is
obtained. Fig. 11 shows the time history of the normal dis-
placement on the contact surface.
4. Contact stress and mesh stiness of helical gear drive
Determination of load distribution along the tooth
width during meshing process is a basis for gear drive
design. Due to the assumptions and simplications made,
it is dicult to accurately predict the load distribution
and contact stresses using conventional methods. On the
contrary, the load distribution and contact stresses can be
accurately predicted using the nite element method for
contact problems with proper denition of gear geometry,
loading and boundary conditions.
In this paper, a helical gear drive is considered with a
1500 N m torque applied on the pinion. For the static con-
tact analysis of the gear drive, xed displacement con-
straints are applied to the bottom surface of the gear.
The nite element mesh is shown in Fig. 6. As can be seen
from the gure, three pairs of teeth are engaged at the mesh
position. Fig. 12 shows the contact force distributions
along the face width. It is apparent that the middle tooth
(tooth 2) takes most of loading and the maximum contact
force appears close to one end of the gear. However, the
maximum von Mises stress as shown in Fig. 13 is at the
tip of tooth 3 on the right. This suggests that tooth prole
modication is needed in order to reduce the peak stress
level.
The mesh stiness is dened as the value of the applied
load that can generate 1 lm deformation on 1 mm face
width while a pair of teeth or several pairs of teeth are
engaged. Assume that the number of teeth is n and the
deformations of the pinion and gear teeth are d
pi
(i = 1, . . . , n) and d
gi
(i = 1, . . . , n), respectively. The mesh
stiness can be given as follows:
C =

n
i=1
F
i
d
pi
d
gi
: (30)
Time t (s)
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

v
(
m
m
/
s
)

Numerical solution
Analytical solution
-500
-250
0
250
500
750
1000
1250
1500
0 120 100 80 60 40 20 140
Fig. 10. Time history of normal velocity.
Time t (s)
D
i
s
p
l
a
c
e
m
e
n
t

(

m
)
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
0 120 100 80 60 40 20 140

Fig. 11. Time history of normal displacement.

0
30
60
90
120
150
180
210
240
270
300
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
C
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
(
N
/
m
m
)
Face width b (mm)
Tooth 2
Tooth 3
Tooth 1
Fig. 12. Distribution curve of tooth contact force while three teeth is
meshing.
Fig. 13. The von Mises stress of the gear.
0
0
5
10
15
20
25
120 100 80 60 40 20 140
Time t (s)
C
o
n
t
a
c
t

p
r
e
s
s
u
r
e

(
M
P
a
)
Numerical solution
Analytical solution
Fig. 9. Time history of dynamic contact pressure.
T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728 1723
Therefore the variations of contact pressure and mesh sti-
ness during the whole meshing process can be calculated
using the nite element method developed in this research.
For the helical gear drive as shown in Table 1, there are
two possible meshing conditions of either two or three
pairs of teeth engaged. Each tooth pair rotates an angle
of 22.7 from the tooth root to tip and the contact forces
of each tooth pair during the meshing process is shown
in Fig. 14.
The mesh stiness curve of the gear drive is shown in
Fig. 15. The mesh stiness varies in the range from 17 N/
mm lm to 19 N/mm lm dependent upon whether two or
three tooth pairs are engaged.
The mesh stiness C
/
can be approximately determined
by the conventional formula as given by [24]
q = 0:04723
0:15551
Z
V 1

0:25791
Z
V 2
; (31)
C
/
=
1
q
cos a
n
cos b =
cos 20

cos 13:5

0:05317
; (32)
where Z
V1
and Z
V2
are the equivalent number of teeth of
the pinion and the gear, respectively. With the given values
of Z
V1
= 47.854 and Z
V2
= 95.717 in this gear train, the
mesh stiness is calculated to be C
/
= 17.2 (N/mm lm).
Therefore the mesh stiness results are in good agreement
using the conventional and the nite element methods.
5. Impact characteristics of gear drives
The phenomenon of initial speed impact occurs when
there is a sudden change of the rotating speed in a gear
drive and another important consideration in gear design
and dynamics is the situation of sudden loading to a gear
system. To investigate the dynamic behavior of a gear sys-
tem under the both conditions, a spur gear and a helical
gear drives are investigated in this research. The parame-
ters of the helical gear drive are given in Table 1. For the
spur gear case, all gear parameters are the same with an
exception of a zero helix angle being dened, i.e. b = 0.
5.1. Initial speed impact
For the initial speed impact problem, it is assumed that
the gear is fully constrained and it is meshed with the pin-
ion, which has initial rotating speeds of n
1
= 500 rpm and
n
2
= 1000 rpm, respectively. Using the developed nite ele-
ment method for contact/impact problems, the dynamic
responses of both the spur gear and the helical gear drives
are obtained. Fig. 16a and b compare the results of the
total contact forces under dierent initial rotating speeds
of the pinion and between the two gear types.
It is apparent that the impact time is independent of the
initial speed, and the total contact force is directly propor-
tional to the initial speeds of the pinion. Due to the gradual
engagement of the tooth pairs and longer distance on the
line of contact in the helical gear drive, smaller values of
the total contact forces are predicted when the same rotat-
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24
Tooth 1
Tooth 2 Tooth 3 Tooth 4
Tooth 5
Angle of rotation (
o
)
C
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
(
k
N
)
Fig. 14. Contact force curve of each tooth pair during meshing process.
0
3
6
9
12
15
18
21
0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24
M
e
s
h
i
n
g

s
t
i
f
f
n
e
s
s

C
(
N
/
m
m
)
Angle of rotation (
o
)
m

.
Fig. 15. Mesh stiness curve of gear during meshing process.
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
r/min 1000
2
= n
r/min 500
1
= n
Time t (s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(
k
N
)

0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27
r/min 1000
2
= n
r/min 500
1
= n
Time t ( s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(

k
N
)

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
Fig. 16. Total contact forces under initial speed with displacement constraint. (a) Spur gear and (b) helical gear.
1724 T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728
ing speed of the pinion is assumed as shown in Fig. 16a and
b. It is also noticeable that the impact time and the contact
force vary corresponding to the tooth meshing positions;
i.e. the more tooth members are in engaged, the less vari-
ances of the contact forces and thus a better loading
condition.
Fig. 17 presents the normal velocities of the contact sur-
faces for the spur gear drive when the initial speed of the
pinion is 500 r/min. It can be seen that the velocities oscil-
late around certain average values. Fig. 18 shows selected
consecutive still frames of the stress contours of the spur
gear drive. These stress variations in dierent time frames
show the propagation of elastic waves in the meshing gears.
When the gear is stationary without tangential con-
straints, the gear can rotate around its centre if a force is
applied to it from the pinion. Under this boundary condi-
tion, the time histories of the total contact forces are shown
in Fig. 19a and b. Comparing to Fig. 16, the impact time
reduces considerably and the maximum contact forces
become much smaller. It is also noted that there is a signif-
icant change of the contact force distributions as a function
of time. Further evaluation of the dynamic behavior may
be carried out for a gear drive when more detailed opera-
tion conditions such as the loading conditions of the system
are known.
5.2. Sudden load impact
For the sudden load impact case, torques applied on
the pinion surface are dened to be T
1
= 1500 N m and
T
2
= 2500 N m, respectively. The total contact forces of
the spur and helical gear drives are shown in Fig. 20 when
two tooth pairs are engaged.
The impact time is independent of the magnitude of the
contact forces. But the total contact forces are directly pro-
portional to the loading and are depended upon the type of
the gear forms. Because the loads are applied to the pinion
boundary surface, the stresses take a short period of time
to propagate from the pinion to the meshing position
and then the gear. This process is shown in Fig. 21 in
selected consecutive still frames of von Mises stress
contours.
5.3. Approach impact
An inherent vibration and noise source of a gear
system is the approach impact, in which the meshing
process changes from a single pair to double pairs of
tooth meshing for a spur gear drive. To evaluate the
dynamic response of the spur gear drive, the nite
Fig. 18. Propagation of elastic waves induced by the initial speed impact and represented by von Mises stress distribution. (a) t = 0.6 ls, (b) t = 1.0 ls,
(c) t = 3.0 ls, (d) t = 10.0 ls, (e) t = 15.0 ls and (f) t = 20.0 ls.
Time t (s)
V
e
l
o
c
i
t
y

v
(
m
m
/
s
)

-3000
-2000
-1000
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Fig. 17. Time history of normal velocity of gears.
T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728 1725
element analysis starts at t = 3 ls before the single pair
meshing changes to the double pair tooth meshing.
Fig. 22 shows the total impact force versus time at dier-
ent rotational speeds and dierent loads applied to the
spur gear drive.
From the result shown in Fig. 22a, the total approach
impact force is directly proportional to the rotating speed,
i.e. the higher the rotating speed, the larger the total con-
tact force. The total contact force before the transition
from the single to double pairs of tooth meshing denotes
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14
r/min 1000
2
= n
r/min 500
1
= n
Time t (s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(
k
N
)
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18
r/min 1000
2
= n
r/min 500
1
= n
Time t (s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(
k
N
)
Fig. 19. Total contact forces under initial speed without displacement constraint. (a) Spur gear and (b) helical gear.
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time t (s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(
k
N
)
m N 2500
2
= T m N 1500
1
= T
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Time t ( s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(

k
N
)

m N 2500
2
= T m N 1500
1
= T
Fig. 20. Total contact forces with sudden applied load. (a) Spur gear and (b) helical gear.
Fig. 21. Propagation of elastic waves induced by the sudden load impact and represented by von Mises stress distribution. (a) t = 1.5 ls, (b) t = 3.0 ls,
(c) t = 4.0 ls, (d) t = 10.0 ls, (e) t = 20.0 ls and (f) t = 40.0 ls.
1726 T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728
only the contact forces of the rst tooth pair and the curve
is smooth. At the instant of t = 3 ls, the second tooth pair
starts to be engaged and this causes an interference between
the meshing tooth pairs because of the elastic deformation
of the rst tooth pair. Thus the impact forces increase dra-
matically and the peak contact force reaches twice as high
as the average value of the contact forces. This is under-
stood to be a main source for vibration and noise of a gear
drive. As can be seen in Fig. 22b, the total contact forces
are directly proportional to the applied torques. A peak
contact force can be seen at the instant of transition of
tooth meshing condition but the magnitude of the contact
forces and the degree of oscillation are not as severe as the
case of dierent rotating speeds.
Finite element analyses are also carried out for the
approach impact problem of the helical gear drive at dier-
ent rotating speeds and torques. The results suggest a pro-
portional reduction of the total contact forces in both the
computational cases of varying rotating speeds and tor-
ques. This is due to the fact that in the case of the helical
gear drive the transition of tooth engagement is from dou-
ble pairs of tooth meshing to triple pairs of tooth meshing.
5.4. Inuence of backlash under sudden loading
The eect of backlash is also evaluated by dening
dierent backlash values of each pair of teeth from
e
1
= 0.1 mm, e
2
= 0.3 mm and e
3
= 0.5 mm, respectively,
when the impact load applied to the pinion is
T = 1500 N m. The total contact forces under a sudden
load applied at the positions of single pair of tooth meshing
and double pairs tooth meshing for the spur gear drive are
shown in Fig. 23.
It can be seen from Fig. 23 that the impact process is
delayed because of the tooth backlash and the delay time
is dependent upon the value of the backlash. When the sud-
den load is applied, the engaged teeth bear not only the
applied load but also the impact loading caused by the ini-
tial speed and acceleration due to the backlash. Compared
with the results without backlash as shown in Fig. 22b, the
impact force increases signicantly and the impact time
reduces at the mean time. In line with the increased values
of the backlash, the total contact forces increase and the
contact time reduces accordingly. It is clear that the tooth
backlash has a signicant eect on the dynamic character-
istics of the gear drives. It is demonstrated through the
numerical results obtained that the nite element method
outlined in the paper can be used not only to predict the
overall dynamic behavior of a gear drive but also to quan-
tify the detailed eect of various factors such as the back-
lash, approach impact and initial speed/load impact.
Such an analysis would be very useful to improve the
design and manufacturing processes of gear drives for the
improved performance and reduced noise.
6. Conclusions
In this paper we propose a nite element method for 3D
dynamic contact/impact problems. This method is based
on the derivation of the eective exibility matrix equation,
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
140
160
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22
n
1
=500 r/min n
2
=1000 r/min
Time t (s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(
k
N
)
0
0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
T
1
=1500 Nm T
2
=2500 Nm
Time t (s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
/

k
N

Fig. 22. Total approach contact forces of the spur gear drive. (a) At dierent speeds and (b) at dierent loads.
0
50
100
150
200
250
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Time t (s)
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(
k
N
)

1
=0.1 mm

2
=0.3 mm
3
=0.5 mm
0
50
100
150
200
250
0 10 20 40 30 50 60 70 80 90 100
T
o
t
a
l

c
o
n
t
a
c
t

f
o
r
c
e

F
n
(
k
N
)
Time t (s)

1
=0.1 mm

2
=0.3 mm
3
=0.5 mm
Fig. 23. Total contact forces of the spur gear train with dierent gaps. (a) Single tooth meshing and (b) double teeth meshing.
T. Lin et al. / Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 196 (2007) 17161728 1727
which is condensed from the global motion equations to
the contact region of 3D dynamic contact/impact prob-
lems. This makes the computational iterations very ecient
for gear drives as only very small contact region is involved
in tooth meshing at any time instant. A computer program
is developed, which includes an automatic mesh genera-
tion, simulation of static and dynamic contact analysis par-
ticularly for the contact/impact problems of gear drives.
The meshing performance and impact characteristics for
both the spur and the helical gear drives are simulated
under specically dened gear operation conditions. A
number of conclusions may be drawn as follows:
(1) The mesh stiness results during the operation pro-
cess obtained from this research agree well with the
results calculated from the conventional method.
(2) When the case of initial speed impact is considered,
the contact time is independent from the initial speed
but the total contact force is directly proportional to
the initial speed. The more the tooth pairs are
engaged, the less variance of the impact forces is.
The results also quantify the dierences of the total
contact forces between the spur and helical gear
drives.
(3) The approach impact time is mainly prescribed by the
geometric parameters of the gear drive and the total
approach contact force is directly proportional to
the initial speed and the sudden load.
(4) The tooth engagement is delayed because of the tooth
backlash. For the sudden load impact problem, the
delay time is proportional to the value of the back-
lash. The total contact force increases signicantly
with the increase of the tooth backlash but the con-
tact time reduces slightly.
Acknowledgements
This research has been supported by National Natural
Science Foundation of China under contracts No.
50075088 and 50675232. The rst author is grateful for
his sabbatical leave as Visiting Senior Research Fellow at
Queens University Belfast.
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