See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/275346923

Frictional Contact Stress Analysis of Spur Gear by Using Finite Element

Method

Article  in  Applied Mechanics and Materials · July 2015

DOI: 10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.772.159

CITATIONS READS

7 2,012

3 authors, including:

Saravanan Karuppanan Santosh Patil

Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS, Bandar Seri Iskandar, Perak, Malaysia Manipal University Jaipur
64 PUBLICATIONS   257 CITATIONS    21 PUBLICATIONS   107 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Gear Depth Stress Analysis using finite element approach View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Santosh Patil on 25 April 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol 772 (2015) pp 159-163
© (2015) Trans Tech Publications, Switzerland
doi:10.4028/www.scientific.net/AMM.772.159

Frictional Contact Stress Analysis of Spur Gear by using Finite Element

Method
Muhammad Farhan1, a, Saravanan Karuppanan1, b and Santosh S. Patil1, c
1
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS,
Bandar Seri Iskandar, 31750 Tronoh, Perak, Malaysia
a
farhan.dahan@gmail.com, bsaravanan_karuppanan@petronas.com.my, csantosh045@gmail.com

Keywords: Spur Gear, Contact Stress, Finite Element Analysis, Friction

Abstract. Spur gear is used to transfer rotary motion between parallel shafts. The simplicity in its
design is one of the advantages of the spur gear. However higher frictional force that is accumulated
on the gear teeth will influence the spur gear performance. Many previous papers elaborated
extensively on the contact stress in the spur gear but few of them gave the details on how friction
affects the gear teeth. There are insufficient frictional effect data in the gear and thus should be
regarded as an important research parameter. In this paper, the contact stress of spur gear has been
evaluated with and without friction by employing the Hertz theory, AGMA standard and finite
element method (FEM). The frictionless contact stress result has been validated with both the
theoretical methods with minimum deviation. Frictional coefficient range of 0.0 to 0.3 was selected
and the corresponding contact stress is directly proportional to the friction coefficient. The work
also involves the variation of face width of the gear set under the influence of friction. The contact
stress of spur gear was found to be inversely proportional to the face width.

Introduction
Gears can be defined as toothed member which transmit power or motion between two shafts
without any slip. Spur gears are the most recognized and common type of gears. Spur gears have
their teeth parallel to the axis and are used exclusively to transmit rotary motion between two
parallel shafts, while maintaining uniform speed and torque. They have high efficiency and
excellent precision rating. The involute tooth form being the simplest to be manufactured permits
high manufacturing tolerances to be attained.
Contact stress along the line of action causes pitting failure in gears and hence the contact stress
must be within the allowable limits. In order to understand the behaviour of the contact stress, the
stress analysis needs to be carried out. Ali Raad Hassan [1] used finite element method to find the
contact stresses by developing a program to plot a pair of teeth in contact. The stress analysis was
done by using the FE software (ANSYS-APDL). Similarly, Shinde et al. [2] also suggested that the
stress distribution evaluation using FE method is reliable and is comparable with theoretical results.
The paper evaluated both the bending and contact stresses using Pro-E and ANSYS tool. Gurumani
and Shanmugan [3] in 2011 developed a model for a crowned spur gear to investigate the
performance of involute gears. The study showed that the contact stress of circular crowned spur
gear is higher than involute crowned spur gear. Various other literatures [4-6] have also shown
different ways to analyse gears, but analysis including friction is sparse. Hence, an attempt has been
made to study the relation between spur gear contact stress and friction. The present work with
certain assumptions provides an understanding of the effect of friction coefficient on the spur gear
contact stress. The analysis was performed by finite element method and complimented by two
theoretical methods.

All rights reserved. No part of contents of this paper may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of Trans
Tech Publications, www.ttp.net. (ID: 203.106.214.61-21/04/15,15:16:45)
160 Advanced Research in Aerospace, Robotics, Manufacturing Systems,
Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering

Table 1: Spur Gear Specifications

Parameter Pinion Gear
Pressure Angle, ϕ 20°
Module, m 8 mm
Pitch Diameter, dp 176 mm 440 mm
Base Diameter, db 165.39 mm 413.46 mm
Number of Teeth, N 22 55
Face Width, b 120 mm

Methodology
Theoretical Calculation. The contact stress of the gear set was determined by using Hertz theory
of contact stress (Equation 1) and also by AGMA standards (Equation 2). The gear specifications as
mentioned in Table 1 were used for the calculations and the material used was structural steel. The
modulus of elasticity and Poisson’s ratio of the gear material are 200 GPa and 0.3, respectively.

(1)

where, W is the load, b is the face width,  is the pressure angle, rp1 and rp2, υ1 and υ2, E1 and E2 are
the pitch radius, Poisson’s ratio, Young’s modulus of pinion and gear material, respectively.

(2)

where, , are the coefficient factor, load, overload factor, dynamic

factor, size factor, load distribution factor, pinion’s pitch radius, face width and geometry factor for
pitting resistance, respectively. Table 2 shows the values of the parameters used for the calculations.

Table 2: Values of parameters used in theoretical calculations

Parameter Value
Ze 191
W 9000 N
K0 1.0
KV 1.0
KS 1.0
KH 1.0
rp1 88 mm
b 120 mm
Z1 0.115
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 772 161

Fig. 1 Frictionless support location Fig. 2 Moment applied to the pinion shaft

Fig. 3 Meshing of the spur gear

ANSYS Simulation (Frictionless). A full 3D spur gear pair was modelled by using CATIA and
then imported to ANSYS in IGES format without any data loss. FEM analysis was then carried out
by using static structural analysis in ANSYS FEA software. The results of the FE analysis were
compared with the contact stress results obtained from the theoretical calculations.
In ANSYS workbench platform, the contact types available are bonded, separation, frictionless,
rough and frictional. The contact type chosen initially was frictionless in order to validate the gear
model. The same model was then employed for frictional analysis of the spur gear set. Boundary
conditions were defined to specify the load and supports.
For the present work, the frictionless supports were imposed to both gear and pinion shaft. This
type of support is used to allow rotation in the Z-axis. Therefore, moment will be applied at the
pinion shaft. The moment value was 794820 N.mm. The moment applied is the product of pitch
radius and tangential load. The rotation direction was in the clockwise direction. Fig. 1 and 2 show
the frictionless support location and the moment applied.
The SOLID 185 element type was selected for meshing of the gear pair [7]. This element type is
a common choice for the solid model which provides optimal results by using appropriate time and
computer resources. The number of element generated was 105741 with 1306 contact elements.
Meanwhile, the number of nodes was 175376. The smallest size of the mesh at the contact region
was 0.254 mm. This was the optimum size considering the factor such as time constraint and
computer performance. It is not practical to use the fine meshing for the whole body. This is due to
time constraint and the performance of the computer. As illustrated in Fig. 3, the meshing at the
area of contact (refer to white square) is fine compared to the other region.

ANSYS Simulation (Frictional). The frictional analysis was carried out by changing the
condition at the contact region as frictional. Then, frictional coefficient values were varied from 0.0
to 0.3. The FE analysis procedure was the same for all frictional cases. Later, the gear model was
modified by changing the face width and the gear pair was simulated again. The reason is to find
the relationship between contact stresses and face width under the influence of friction.
162 Advanced Research in Aerospace, Robotics, Manufacturing Systems,
Mechanical Engineering and Bioengineering

Results and Discussion

The analytical calculations for contact stresses have been done by using Hertz theory and AGMA
standards. Table 3 shows the contact stress for Hertz theory and AGMA standards. The results
showed that both the theoretical techniques were almost similar and the percentage of deviation
between them is only 2.85 %. AGMA contact stress has greater value when compared to that of
Hertz contact stress value. The contact stress produced, must not exceed the ultimate tensile
strength which in this case is 623 MPa [8]. If the value exceeded the ultimate tensile strength, the
gear failure will occur. The next step was to model and perform static structural analysis in ANSYS
for frictionless case. Frictionless contact stress obtained by FE simulation was 380 MPa. When this
value was compared to the Hertz theory and AGMA standard, the deviation was 8.4 % and 5.4 %,
respectively. This deviation was considered acceptable because the percentage of deviation is below
10%.
Once the validation was done, frictional contact stress analysis which includes the effect of face
width was carried out in ANSYS Workbench. Fig. 4 shows the influence of face width on the
contact stress. The plot shows that as the face width increases the contact stress decreases, thus the
relationship between face width and contact stress is inversely proportional. The graph confirmed
the role of the face width which is to distribute the load applied evenly on the spur gear flank. The
theoretical results are also plotted in Fig. 4, which also show the inverse proportionality of the face
width with the contact stress. The results obtained from FE analysis are higher compared to both the
theoretical results, but are in the agreeable limits and hence validating themselves with the
theoretical results. The frictional coefficient increases the stresses values as can be seen in the plot.

Table 3: Hertz theory and AGMA standard Contact Stress

Hertz theory AGMA standard
350 MPa 360 MPa

Fig. 4 Contact stress evaluated for different Fig. 5 Contact stress versus frictional
face width coefficient
 Applied Mechanics and Materials Vol. 772 163

Fig. 5 shows the effect of friction on the contact stress for varying face width values. Generally
under the influence of friction the contact stresses increase. This is consistent with the fundamental
theory. It was found that the stresses can be estimated by the following equation:

(3)

The above equation gives an idea on how to find the frictional contact stress for spur gears with
varying face width values. However, this equation is specific to the geometrical data elaborated
above. This is because different parameter gives different contact stress. Equation 3 is the base of
the parametric relationship between the frictional contact stress and the face width. FE models can
be constructed using similar procedure to study more cases in order to develop a much more
detailed parametric relationship.

Conclusion
The paper discussed a detailed description of FEM models of loaded involute spur gear pair for the
evaluation of contact stresses on the tooth flank. The relationship between the contact stress and
friction was determined by using ANSYS Workbench. The results confirmed the fundamental
theory of contact stress. The main conclusions obtained from the present work can be summarized
as follows:-
1. The results obtained by FE model of the spur gear pair were validated with theoretical
calculations. Hence, the FE model developed was confirmed to provide reliable results.
2. The contact stress increased with the increase of friction coefficient by around 5 to 8% when
the coefficient of friction rises from 0 to 0.3.
3. The contact stress decreased with the increase of face width, showing an inversely
proportional relation between them.

References
[1] A.R. Hassan: Contact Stress Analysis of Spur Gear Tooth Pair, World Academy of Science
Engineering and Technology, (2009).
[2] S.P. Shinde, A.A. Nikam, and T.S. Mulla: Static Analysis of Spur Gear using Finite Element
Analysis, IOSR Journal of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, Vol. 2278-1684 (2010), p. 23-31
[3] R. Gurumani, and S. Shanmugam: Modeling and Contact Analysis of Crowned Spur Gear
Teeth, Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 1(1) (2011), p. 65-78.
[4] S. Patil, S. Karuppanan, and A. Abdul Wahab: Contact Pressure Evaluation of a Gear Pair along
the Line of Action Using Finite Element Analysis, Applied Mechanics and Materials, Vol. 393
(2013), p. 403-408.
[5] S.C. Hwang, J.H. Lee, D.H. Lee, S.H. Han, and K.H. Lee: Contact Stress Analysis for a Pair of
Mating Gears, Mathematics and Computer Modelling, Vol. 57(2) (2013), p. 40-49.
[6] S. S. Patil, S. Karuppanan, I. Atanasovska, and A. A. Wahab: Contact Stress Analysis of Helical
Gear Pairs including Frictional Coefficients, International Journal of Mechanical Sciences, Vol.
85 (2014), p. 205-211.
[7] ANSYS Release 12.0, Structural analysis guide, ANSYS Inc., Canonsburg, PA – 15317, USA.
(2009).
[8] S. Vijayarangan, and N. Ganesan: Static Contact Stress analysis of a Spur Gear Tooth using the
Finite Element Method including Frictional Effects, Computers and Structures, Vol. 51(6)
(1994), p. 765-770.

View publication stats