World Tribology Congress 2013

Torino, Italy, September 8 13, 2013

Load independent power losses of ordinary gears:

numerical and experimental analysis
Dr.-Ing.Franco Concli1), Prof. Dr.-Ing.Carlo Gorla1)
Prof. Dr.-Ing.Karsten Stahl , Prof. i. R. Dr.-Ing. Bernd-Robert Hhn2), Dr.-Ing. Klaus Michaelis2) , Dipl.-Ing.Hansjrg
Schulthei2), M.Sc. Johann-Paul Stemplinger2)
2)

1)

2)

Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano,Via La Masa 1, I-20156 Milano, Italy

FZG, Gear Research Center, Tech. Univ. of Munich, Boltzmannstrae 15, D-85748 Garching bei Mnchen, Germany
*
Corresponding author: franco.concli@mail.polimi.it

1. Summary
Efficiency improvement is the new challenge in all
fields of design. In this scenario the reduction of power
losses is becoming more and more a main concern also
in the design of power transmissions. For this reason it
is important to have models available in order to quantify the power losses since the design stage.
Furthermore, a reduction of the dissipated power implies some improvements in other aspects like system
reliability, downsizing, system architecture and so on.
In this paper a CFD based approach has been adopted in
order to predict the power losses generated by a single
rotating gear and by a meshing gear pair. The results
have been compared with measured ones showing extremely good agreement.
Keywords: gear, efficiency, churning losses, CFD,
multiphase
2. Introduction
Efficiency is becoming more and more a main concern
in the design of power transmissions for all the fields of
application and increasing the efficiency of power transmissions can give a significant contribution to the reduction of pollutant emissions and energy savings.
Moreover the reduction of power losses, which are dissipated in the form of heat, can imply improvements in
other aspects like reliability, related to different thermal
regimes, downsizing, weight reduction and system architecture. The first step to improve efficiency is to have
appropriate models to compare different design solutions. Even if power transmissions are typically a part of
a complex system in which other parts very often have
much bigger power losses, like combustion engines for
instance, nevertheless improvements in their efficiency
can determine big savings on a global scale.
The power losses of a mechanical transmission can be
subdivided primarily into bearing losses, seal losses,
meshing losses and hydraulic losses [1]. Literature provides some models for the prediction of most of them.
Some models, obtained on the basis of experimental

tests, can be found in literature which describe the influence of gear geometric and kinematic parameters on hydraulic losses like for instance those proposed by Mauz
[2] or by Dowson [3], who has concentrated only on
windage losses. Nevertheless, the authors maintain that
a deeper understanding of the physical phenomena responsible for gear losses is still needed in order to improve existing models and CFD simulation can be an effective approach for such investigation.
Marchesse et al. [4], on the basis of a state of the art
concerning the application of CFD to the prediction of
gear power losses, applied CFD models to study
windage losses of gears and have validated their results
by means of experimental tests.
Simulations of the churning losses of planetary gearboxes and squeezing losses have been investigated by
the authors in previous works [5, 6].
A large amount of experimental data on churning and
windage power losses is available at FZG, resulting
from several years of tests [9], both for single gears and
for two meshing gears completely or partially immersed
in oil. This data covers the influence of several parameters like tip diameter, face width, helix angle, temperature and oil type. In a previous work [10], the authors
have investigated the windage losses of a single rotating
gear (100% immersion in the lubricant) by mean of
CFD simulations and the results have been compared
with the experimental ones available at FZG giving
good agreement. In order to improve the understanding
of the mechanisms involved in churning losses (dip lubrication with the presence of a free surface), CFD simulations have been run in order to investigate the effect
of some parameters, on the power losses generated by a
single rotating gear and by a meshing gear pair. The numerical results have been compared with the measurements.
3. Problem description
A simple geometry consisting in a gearbox with either a
single rotating gear mounted on a cantilevered shaft or
two engaging gears was used both for the simulations
and for the experiments. Both shafts are supported each
by two bearings. The primary shaft is then connected to

an electric motor that provides the power (that is completely dissipated, part by the bearings and part by the
gears in terms of no-load losses).
Some preliminary tests with one single rotating gear
and 100% oil filling have been conducted in order to
validate the numerical model [10]. At this point of the
research, some numerical simulations concerning two
meshing gears have been performed and additional tests
conducted in order to assess the quality of the CFD
based results.

mesh consisting of quadrilateral elements. In the region

of the meshing and in proximity of the gears a triangular
extruded mesh was used. The choice of this kind of
mesh was mandatory in order to be able, during the calculation, to adapt the mesh to the geometrical changes
due to the rotation of the gears. 6,5x106 elements have
been used.
5.2. Averaged Navier-Stokes equations
The CFD is based on three governing equations that represent mathematical statements of the conservations
laws of physics.
The first equation is the averaged mass conservation
equation for not-stationary incompressible flows and
can be written as follows

ui
=0
x i
where x i is the Cartesian coordinate and ui is the

velocity component. The second equation is the averaged momentum conservation equation and can be written as follows

Figure 1 : FZG no-load gear loss test rig

(schematic)
4. Fluid properties
For the tests a mineral based oil was used. The detailed
oil properties can be seen in Table 1.
Table 1: oil properties of the used lubricants
Oil

Kinematic
viscosity at
40 C
40 [mm/s]

Kinematic viscosity at 100 C

100 [mm/s]

Density at
15 C
15 [kg/m]

FVA2

29.8

5.2

871

5. Numerical model
5.1. Geometry and mesh
In the numerical simulations some geometry simplifications have been adopted. Despite of the cantilever
shafts, it was chosen to consider the model as symmetric. This simplification was adopted in order to reduce
the volume of the considered domain and, consequently,
to reduce the amount of cells needed for the numerical
discretization. After this simplifications, the virtual
model appears as shown in figure 2.

( u i ) ( ui ui )
=
+
t
x j
ui u j ij
( p )
+
[ (
)
]
t
xj
x j xi
xj
Where
p is the pressure, ui are the Cartesian
coordinates and is the density. The additional
term that compare in the averaged equation ij (in
comparison to the not-averaged transport equations) is
called unresolved term or Reynolds term and can be
expressed by using the eddy-viscosity hypothesis.
The last governing equation, the energy conservation,
was not activated in the given models and the
temperature set a priori changing the oil properties.
6. Operating conditions
With CFD analysis the effect of different parameters
was investigated. Table 2 summarizes the combination
of parameters adopted in the different simulations.
Table 2: combination of parameters adopted for the
CFD simulations

Figure 2 : geometry of the numerical model

The model has been discretized with tetrahedrons: for
complex geometries, in fact, this mesh topology can often be created with far fewer cells than the equivalent

Gears
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
1
1
1

b [mm]
40
40
40
40
40
40
20
20
20
40
40
40

da [mm]
102.5
102.5
102.5
96,5
96,5
96,5
102.5
102.5
102.5
98
98
98

n [rpm]
2000
5000
8000
2000
5000
8000
2000
5000
8000
2000
5000
8000

Phases
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
2
2
2

7. Results

Figure 3 : Windage torque: effect of the tip

diameter for a single rotating gear and for two
mating gears

Figure 4 : Windage torque: effect of the face width

for a single rotating gear and for two mating
gears

Figure 3 shows the comparison between the numerical

and the experimental results in terms of windage torque
versus rotational speed for different tip diameters. The
dashed lines represent the results of the experiments
without the losses of the bearings, the continuous lines
the numerical results for the case with two meshing
gears and the dots the numerical results for the case with
a single rotating gear already presented by the authors in
a previous paper [10]. It can be seen that the tip
diameter has a big influence on the losses: an increment
of about 5% from 96.5 mm to 102.5 mm in the tip
diameter induces an increment in the losses of about
100%. Furthermore, it can be seen that the losses
generated by two meshing gears are more than the
double of the losses generated by a single rotating gear.
This is because if two gears are present, some additional
squeezing losses arise.
Figure 4 shows similar results but for different face
widths. Also this parameter has a big influence on the
losses, but, as expected, the losses do not increase
linearly with the increment of the face width, thank to
the side effects that remain more or less the same in
both cases.
Figure 5 shows a comparison between the losses
generated by a single rotating gear in the case of full
filling (100% oil) and the losses generated by the same
geometrical configuration in the case of dip lubrication
with 50% oil filling. It appears that the losses decrease
enormously with the reduction of amount of lubricant.
This points out, once again, the importance of beeing
able to predict the power losses with the final aim to
optimize the amount of lubricant in order to reduce as
possible the losses avoiding at the same time thermal
and reliability problems.
8. Conclusions

Figure 5 : Churning vs windage torque for a single

rotating gear

The results of the experiments confirm that CFD

represents a valid method to predict power losses. The
error in the predictions for the analyzed cases is always
lower than 8%. One of the causes of the differences is
the fact that the geometry has been simplified. The
simulations were performed for different geometrical
configurations; in particular the tip diameter has been
changed from 96.5 mm to 102.5 mm while the face
width has been changed from 20 mm to 40 mm. Also
the rotational speed of the gears has been varied from 0
rpm up to 8000 rpm and the amount of oil from 50% up
to 100%.

The analyzed parameters have different influences on

the losses. The losses increase with the velocity power
three if the gearbox is completely filled with oil
(windage losses), while they evolve with rotational
speed power lower than three if the filling is partial
(churning losses). The losses appear to be related to the
face width in a linear manner (except for the side effects
that remain more or less the same also for different face
widths). Finally, the losses appear to increase
significantly with the tip diameter that is, together with
the rotational speed, the most influencing parameter.
Since CFD proves to be a valid tool to predict the load
independent losses, it is planned to investigate the
influence of other geometrical and operating parameters
besides more complex systems involving two gears and
two phases at the same time.
Furthermore a specifically developed stand alone CFD
tool for gears efficiency predictions is under testing. The
aim of this tool is to provide to the gear designers a
complete solution ready for the simulations of
gearboxes lubrication and tribology.
9. References
[1]

NIEMANN,
G.,
WINTER,
H.:
Maschinenelemente Band II Getriebe allgemein,
Zahnradgetriebe Grundlagen, Stirnradgetriebe,
Springer-Verlag, Berlin Heidelberg Ney York
Tokio 1983

MAUZ, W.: Hydraulische Verluste von

Stirnradgetrieben bei Umfangsgeschwindigkeiten
bis 60 m/s, Universitt Stuttgart 1987.
[3] DAWSON, P.H., Windage loss in larger highspeed gears, Proc. Inst. Mech. Eng., 198A (1),
pp.51-59.
[4] MARCHESSE Y., et all. Investigation on CFD simulation for predicting windage power losses in
spur gears, ASME J. Mech. Des.
[5] F. CONCLI, C. GORLA - Computational and experimental analysis of the churning power losses
in an industrial planetary speed reducer - Advances in Fluid Mechanics IX (WIT Transactions on
Engineering Sciences) ISBN: 978-1-84564-600-4
- Wessex institute of technology, UK
[6] F. CONCLI, C. GORLA - CFD Simulations of
windage losses of a gearbox, International CAEConference 2012 & Ansys Italian Conference
2012, Pacengo, VR, Italy
[7] F. CONCLI, C. GORLA - Oil squeezing power
losses of a gear pair: a CFD analysis - Advances in
Fluid Mechanics IX (WIT Transactions on Engineering Sciences) ISBN: 978-1-84564-600-4 Wessex institute of technology, UK
[8] F. CONCLI, C. GORLA - Analysis of the oil
squeezing power losses of a spur gear pair by
mean of CFD simulations ASME ESDA
[9] B.-R. HHN, K.MICHAELIS, H.-P. OTTO: Influence on no-load gear losses, Ecotrib 2011
[10] C. GORLA, et all. CFD simulations of splash
losses of a gearbox, Advanced in tribology, 2012
[2]