ACTIVE CONTROL OF GEARBOX VIBRATION

Brian Rebbechi Carl Howard Colin Hansen

Airframes and Engines
Division
Aeronautical and Maritime
Research Laboratory
Melbourne, Victoria
Australia
Department of Mechanical
Engineering
University of Adelaide
Adelaide, South Australia
Australia
Department of Mechanical
Engineering
University of Adelaide
Adelaide, South Australia
Australia

ABSTRACT

Active vibration control was successfully applied to the meshing of gear teeth inside a gearbox
to reduce the vibration at the mounting points of a gearbox and the radiated sound pressure
level. Magnetostrictive actuators inside the gearbox were used to move the shaft on which the
input pinion was mounted, which in turn modifies the kinematic meshing behaviour of the gear
teeth. An adaptive feedforward controller was used to determine the correct amplitude and phase
of the force the actuators applied to the shaft to minimize the vibration at the feet of the gearbox
housing. The vibration was attenuated by 20-28dB at the 1x, 5-10dB at 2x and 0-2dB at 3x gear
mesh frequencies, by simultaneously minimizing the first 3 harmonics of the gear mesh
frequency.

INTRODUCTION

In the field of transmission design, it may be advantageous to reduce the vibration transmission
into the support structure. Designers often use helical or herringbone shaped gear teeth in
gearboxes because they result in lower vibration levels compared to spur shaped gear teeth.
Once the gear tooth shape and the manufacturing process and precision has been chosen, the
resulting vibration that the gearbox exhibits is accepted as inherent and it is then left to a
vibration engineer to select suitable isolators to reduce the vibration transmitted into the support
structure. However even with well designed isolators there will always be some residual
vibration that is transmitted into the support structure. If the source of the vibration in the
gearbox can be reduced, then there will be less residual vibration in the support structure.

There are essentially three mechanisms responsible for the generation of noise and vibration by
gear teeth. If the transmitted force between the teeth varies in amplitude, direction or position,
then the gears will vibrate and will generate noise. These mechanism occur when there is
friction between the teeth, poor surface finish on the mating parts, an imperfection in the tooth
profile or a transmission error, which is the relative displacement between the gear teeth [1].
This paper describes an experimental gearbox that can reduce the transmission error and the
resulting vibration using active vibration control. Actuators inside the gearbox are used to move
gears relative to each other to minimize the vibration transmitted through the shaft support
bearings to the gearbox housing.

A review of the literature did not reveal that this application has been considered previously.
Previous researchers [2] have used piezo-electric pushers attached to a rotating shaft to reduce
the unbalanced vibration in a rotor using feedback control to increase the damping at the
resonance frequency of the system.

Previous research into reducing the noise from gears has mainly focused on the tooth shape and
irregularities of the tooth profile. Little research has been conducted into using active vibration
control applied to the meshing of gear teeth. A great deal of research has been conducted into
the use of gearbox vibration isolators to minimize the noise and vibration transmitted by
helicopter gearboxes into the cabin [2-6]. A helicopter’s gearbox usually sits directly above the
passengers’ heads and is the source of high levels of noise and vibration. The gearbox is usually
attached to the fuselage using support struts that are designed to take large mechanical loads.
The struts also provide a structural vibration transmission path between the gearbox generated
vibration that couples with the helicopter’s fuselage. The vibration that is transmitted along the
struts comes from the low frequency vibration of the helicopters main rotor and the high
frequency vibration from the gear vibration in the main rotor gearbox. The low frequency
vibration excites the support struts along the longitudinal axis and the high frequency vibration
tends to excite the strut flexurally [7]. Brennan [8] suggested the use of a thin rubber isolator
between the gearbox and the fuselage. The thin rubber isolator has a high longitudinal stiffness
compared to flexural stiffness and hence is able to provide the support for the large longitudinal
mechanical load. The isolator can effectively isolate the high frequency flexural vibrations in the
support strut, but is unable to isolate the longitudinal vibration. The longitudinal vibration along
the support struts is dominant across the entire frequency range and is the most significant
mechanism for noise generation in the fuselage [7-9]. An active vibration isolation system could
be used to reduce the longitudinal vibration along the support strut. The system would need to
be incorporated in parallel to the existing struts so that the system is fail-safe and the large
mechanical load is still supported by the conventional struts. This type of system has been
demonstrated in the Eurocopter [10], and used hydraulic actuators fitted inside each of the struts
to generate a counteracting force to reduce the longitudinal vibration along the strut.

APPARATUS

A schematic of the experimental gearbox is shown in Figure 1. A 30kW synchronous electric

motor drives the input shaft of the gearbox and the output shaft is connected to a dynamometer.
Inside the gearbox, spur gears are attached to the input and output shafts, which have 27 and 49
teeth respectively. A double row bearing is mounted on the input shaft next to the input pinion
and is acted upon by 4 magnetostrictive actuators. Two actuators are aligned with the normal to
the contact point of the meshing gears. Another pair of actuators is perpendicularly mounted to
the first pair, as shown in Figure 2. Each pair of actuators is electrically connected 180° out of
phase so that one actuator is pushing while the other is pulling. Only results obtained using the
actuators mounted along the horizontal axis are reported here. The actuators mounted along the
 M ag netostrictive
A ctuator
D rive G ear
G earbo x Ta chom eter
H o using
M otor

D yno

A cce lero m e ter

B earing
A cce lero m e ter
D riven G ea r A m p lifier
P laym aster M icropho ne
P ow er A m plifier

O scilloscop e 1000
100
1000F
100F
1000
100
1000F
100F
M icroph one
A m plifie r
10 10F 10 10F

Spectrum
A na lyzer

A ctive Vibration C o ntrolle r

Figure 1: Schematic of the equipment setup.

vertical axis had a much smaller effect, presumably due to the small influence that they have on
transmission error.

The experimental rig is shown in Figure 3. A gear with 27 teeth was attached to the output shaft
of the gearbox and a proximity probe with conditioning electronics was used to obtain a
sinusoidal tachometer signal at the gear mesh frequency. A frequency multiplier was used to
generate a sinusoidal signal at 2x and 3x the gear mesh frequency. The particular multiplier that
was used was not capable of accurately tracking the 4x and 5x gear mesh frequencies. For future
work it is intended to use a different gear with 108 teeth to generate the reference signal for the
1x - 4x gear mesh frequencies. The conditioning electronics will be modified so that the 108
toothed gear can be used to generate the 1x gear mesh frequency by dividing the number of
pulses by 4. Generating the reference signal for the 1x – 4x gear mesh frequencies by dividing
the frequency of the tachometer signal will be more accurate than multiplying the 1x gear mesh
frequency.
 C on tro l
A ctua to rs

F oo t of ge a rb ox
h o usin g
Figure 2: Side view of the gearbox

Figure 3: The experimental rig

Slight errors occur in the triggering from the square wave signal from the tachometer and these
errors are amplified when the 1x gear mesh frequency is multiplied to generate a signal at the 4x
gear mesh frequency. When the 108 tooth gear is used, the 1x gear mesh frequency will be
generated by dividing the frequency of the tachometer signal by 4, and hence the errors
associated with the triggering from the square wave signal become smaller.

A Causal Systems feedforward adaptive vibration controller was used to minimize the vibration
at an accelerometer attached to the foot of the gearbox casing. The controller uses a floating
point SHARC digital signal processor and has 10 input channels and 10 output channels. A
graphical user interface that runs on a Windows based computer is used to interface with the
SHARC controller.

The sinusoidal tachometer signal was used by the controller as a reference signal and was
digitally filtered to produce a control signal that was supplied to the power amplifiers that were
connected to the control actuators. The adaptive controller adjusted the weights of the Finite
Impulse Response digital filter until the error signal was minimized, which in this case was the
acceleration at one of the feet of the gearbox housing or the sound pressure level at 1m from the
gearbox.

RESULTS

Figure 4 shows the vibration levels at the foot of the gearbox housing without active control.
The figure shows that the acceleration levels at 1x, 2x, 3x and 4x gear mesh frequencies are
clearly distinguishable from the broad-band vibration levels.

0
4x GMF

-10
1x GMF
2x GMF
3x GMF
Acceleration (dB re 1V)

-20

-30

-40

-50

-60
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
Frequency (Hz)

Figure 4: Power spectral density of the vibration at the foot of the gearbox when the
active vibration control system was turned off.
The adaptive controller was used to minimize the vibration at the feet of the gearbox, as shown
in Figure 1, at the 1x, 2x and 3x gear mesh frequencies for varying levels of power transmission
and the results are shown in Figure 5. The figure also shows the reduction in Sound Pressure
Level (SPL) at 1m from the gearbox when the vibration was minimized. The results show that
active control was able to reduce the vibration level of the 1x gear mesh frequency by 20dB for
all power levels. Although not shown in this figure, the vibration at the 1x gear mesh frequency
was reduced to the level of the broad band vibration spectrum. The corresponding reduction in
sound pressure level at the 1x gear mesh frequency was between 5-10dB which can be described
as “clearly noticeable” [7].

Minimizing Vibration at 1x, 2x & 3x GMF

35
30
25
20
Vib - 1x
Reduction (dB)

15 Vib - 2x
Vib - 3x
10
SPL - 1x
5 SPL - 2x
0 SPL - 3x
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
-5
-10
-15
Power (kW)

Figure 5: Active control of the vibration at the feet of the gearbox of the 1x, 2x and 3x
gear mesh frequency for varying transmission power levels.

An active control experiment was conducted to minimize the SPL at a distance of 1m from the
side of the gearbox at the 1x and 2x gear mesh frequencies for various power transmission levels
and the results are shown in Figure 6. The 3x gear mesh frequency was not controlled in this
experiment due to difficulties with the convergence of the controller, however the vibration and
SPL levels are shown in the figure for comparison with the previous results. The figure shows
that at the 1x gear mesh frequency there was a reduction in the SPL of about 20dB which could
be described as “much quieter” [7]. It is interesting to note that for the 5kW to 6kW power
levels, the vibration level at the 2x GMF was greater for active control by minimization of sound
pressure than when the control system was turned off. In this experiment, there was a global
reduction in the SPL because the source of noise generation was being actively controlled.
Further measurements are required to quantify these findings.
 Minimizing SPL at 1x & 2x GMF
30

25

20
Vib - 1x
Reduction (dB)

15 Vib - 2x
Vib - 3x
SPL - 1x
10
SPL - 2x
SPL - 3x
5

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
-5
Power (kW)

Figure 6: Active control of the SPL at the 1x and 2x gear mesh frequency for varying levels
of power transmission.

As shown in Figure 4, the SPL and vibration levels at the 4x and 5x gear mesh frequencies were
significant and should be targeted for reduction by the active control system. At this stage, a
suitable reference signal at the 4x or 5x gear mesh frequency could not be generated and will be
investigated in the future.

Figure 7 shows that when the vibration was minimized at a single frequency, then the vibration
at the feet of the gearbox could be reduced by about 20dB. Minimization of the vibration at the
fundamental frequency and the harmonics resulted in less attenuation than achieved by
minimizing the vibration at a single frequency. Further work will be conducted to ensure that the
same amount of vibration attenuation is achieved for minimizing the vibration at a single
frequency or minimizing all of the harmonics of interest simultaneously.
 Minimizing Vibration or SPL
at 1x 2x or 3x GMF

25

20
Reduction (dB)

15

SPL
10
Vib

0
SPL 1x SPL 2x SPL 3x Vib 1x Vib 2x Vib 3x
-5
Parameter that was minimized

Figure 7: Minimizing the vibration or SPL at a single frequency.

CONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK

The experimental results showed that it is possible to reduce substantially the vibration of the
gearbox at the 1x, 2x and 3x gear mesh frequencies and the radiated sound at the 1x gear mesh
frequency by about 20dB by actively controlling the gear transmission error. The tonal vibration
was reduced to the level of the broad band spectrum. Further investigations will be conducted to
minimize simultaneously the vibration at the 1x to 5x gear mesh frequencies using an adaptive
controller. Experimental difficulties were found in accurately generating a reference signal that
was correlated with the shaft speed. Future work will be conducted using a toothed gear attached
to the driving shaft that has the same number of teeth as the 4x gear mesh frequency. Additional
investigations need to be conducted to ensure that the same amount of vibration attenuation is
achieved when controlling the vibration at a single frequency or controlling the vibration at the
harmonics. The actuators along the vertical and horizontal axes will be used simultaneously
together with effort weighting to avoid overdriving one set of actuators or the other. Sound
pressure level measurements will be taken at several locations around the room to quantify the
global reduction in the SPL when active control is used to minimize the vibration or SPL.
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