Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275

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Measurement
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/measurement

Experimental measurement of gear mesh stiffness of cracked

spur gear by strain gauge technique
Naresh K. Raghuwanshi, Anand Parey ⇑
Mechanical Engineering Department, Indian Institute of Technology Indore, Indore, MP, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In this paper, an experimental technique based on strain gauge has been proposed to mea-
Received 22 July 2015 sure the gear mesh stiffness of healthy spur gear as well as of cracked spur gear pair sys-
Received in revised form 24 February 2016 tem. Calculation of mesh stiffness of healthy and cracked spur gear tooth are based on
Accepted 1 March 2016
strain energy and strain energy release rate respectively. The location of strain gauge plays
Available online 7 March 2016
an important role in calculation of strain energy stored in gear tooth. The locations of strain
gauge on gear tooth are illustrated for healthy and cracked gear. Stress intensity factor (SIF)
Keywords:
has been calculated by strain gauge technique for calculating the stiffness of cracked pinion
Mesh stiffness
Spur gear
tooth. The effect of crack length on mesh stiffness has been investigated by strain gauge
Crack technique and results are compared with the established analytical method.
SIF Ó 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Strain gauge

1. Introduction developed a strain gauge method to investigate the mode

Gearboxes are used in automobiles and industrial
machineries to transmit the power from one shaft to
another shaft. Gear mesh stiffness varies during meshing
of gears. It is the main excitation source of machine noise
and vibration. Mesh stiffness is also affected when there
is any fault in the gear tooth for example crack. Due to
presence of crack in the gear tooth, obviously the tooth
becomes less stiff and the vibration response is changed.
For fault diagnosis by vibration analysis of gearbox accu-
rate measurement of gear mesh stiffness is required.
Strain gauge is an experimental technique to measure
the strain at a point. Strain gauge measures the surface
strain of actual machine parts [1,2]. Strain gauges are
widely used for measurement of strain in static and
dynamic systems and thus for both static and dynamic
stress intensity factors (SIFs) in the isotropic and compos-
ite structures. Irwin [3] first suggested the application of
strain gauge for SIFs calculation. Dally and Sanford [4]
⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 7324240716; fax: +91 7324240700.
E-mail address: anandp@iiti.ac.in (A. Parey).
I SIF in two dimension isotropic bodies. Shukla et al. [5]
calculated SIF in orthotropic composite materials using
strain gauges and also suggested that the large strain gra-
dient near the crack tip also the cause of inaccurate mea-
surement of SIFs and apart from this, strain gauges
should not be placed at a large distances from the crack
tip. Kuang and Chen [6] suggested the strain gauge radial
location to calculate the mode I SIF. They suggested that
the strain gauge radial location should be greater than half
the thickness of the specimen from the crack tip. Parnas
et al. [7] also investigated mode-I SIF by strain gauge and
analytical methods. Sarangi et al. [8–10] suggested the
radial locations of strain gages for accurate measurement
of mode I SIF and also the optimum radial location of strain
gauge for evaluating SIFs in single and double cracked con-
figurations and also suggested the strain gauge location for
measurement of mixed mode SIFs. Above literature shows
that strain gauge technique is most effective and practical
technique to measure the strain and SIF at any point on the
surface of structure or machine parts.
Gear mesh stiffness calculation has been become the
most focussed research topic in gear dynamic modelling

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.measurement.2016.03.001
0263-2241/Ó 2016 Published by Elsevier Ltd.
 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275 267

and fault diagnosis. Yang and Lin [11] calculated the gear 2. Calculation methodology of mesh stiffness
mesh stiffness by considering Hertzian energy, bending
energy, and axial compressive energy in their analytical Mesh stiffness can be defined as combined the teeth
model. This model is modified by Tian [12] for calculating stiffness of the teeth in contact [32]. The mesh stiffness
the total effective mesh stiffness of gear pair by consider- ðkm Þ of single tooth contact pair can be written as
ing shear energy effect in the modal of Yang and Lin [11]. [11,12,30,31];
Zouari et al. [13] they used finite element method with
1
three dimensional model of gear and analysed the effect km ¼ ð1Þ
of crack length and direction of propagation on mesh stiff-
1
kp
þ k1 þ k1g
h

ness. Wu et al. [14] applied Tian’s model [12] on gearbox to

where kp is the pinion tooth stiffness, kg is the gear tooth
know the effect of crack levels on the mesh stiffness and its
stiffness and kh is the Hertzian contact stiffness of pinion
effect on gearbox dynamics. Chaari et al. [15,16] studied
and gear and can be evaluated as [11,12,30,31];
the effect of spalling and tooth breakage on mesh stiffness
of gear pair and derived an analytical formulation for gear EBp
kh ¼ ð2Þ
mesh stiffness by considering rim deformation. Chen and 4ð1  t2 Þ
Shao [17] investigated the effect of crack on the time vary-
where E is modulus of elasticity, B is gear tooth face width
ing mesh stiffness for crack propagations along tooth
and t is Poisson’s ratio.
width. Pandya and Parey [18,19] studied the mesh stiffness
The mesh stiffness ðkm Þ of double tooth contact pair can
for different gear parameters like pressure angle, backup
be written as [11,12,30,31];
ratio, fillet radius and contact ratio. Chen and Shao [20]
investigated the effect of the fixed support and pin support, 1 1
km ¼ þ ð3Þ
ring thickness and number of supports on the gear mesh 1
kp1
þ k1 þ k1g1 k1p2 þ k1 þ k1g2
h h
stiffness of internal spur gear pair. Yang et al. [21] they
proposed a nonlinear model of anti-backlash gear system where kp1 is the tooth stiffness of first pair tooth of pinion,
by considering friction, damping and mesh stiffness and kg1 is the tooth stiffness of first pair tooth of gear, kp2 is the
also analysed the influences of friction and damping ratio tooth stiffness of second pair tooth of pinion and kg2 is the
on dynamic transmission error. Guo and Parker [22] stud- tooth stiffness of second pair tooth of gear.
ied the back-side contact gear tooth mesh stiffness for a If one tooth of pinion with root crack is in meshing the
gear pair. Liang et al. [23] evaluated the gear mesh stiffness stiffness of uncracked pinion tooth kp can be replaced by
for planetary gear set by using the potential energy stiffness of cracked pinion tooth kcp .
method and also applied this method on cracked tooth. For calculating the mesh stiffness of gear pairs as given
Ma et al. [24] studied the mesh stiffness of cracked spur above the individual tooth stiffness is needed to calculate.
gear for different crack propagation path. Pedersen and Jor- The measurement of tooth stiffness by strain gauge exper-
gensen [25] calculated and analysed gear tooth stiffness iment can be understood by flow chart as given in Fig. 1.
and found the stiffness of individual tooth can be
expressed in a linear form assuming the contact width is 2.1. Healthy tooth stiffness calculation
constant. Ma et al. [26] also used improved analytical
model to calculate time-varying mesh stiffness of cracked The elastic strain energy U stored in the volume ele-
spur gears. In the improved analytical model, they ment of a structure can be expressed as [33],
improved mesh stiffness calculation error due to repeat- Z
edly used fillet-foundation stiffness under double-tooth r2
U¼ dV ð4Þ
contact pairs. Saxena et al. [27] studied the effect of v ol 2E
misalignment and friction on mesh stiffness for healthy where integration is over the entire volume of the beam. E
and cracked spur gear pair. Wan et al. [28] proposed an is the modulus of elasticity and r is the stress distribution
accumulated integral potential energy method to evaluate in the beam.
mesh stiffness of helical gears and analysed for different As the bending stress varies along the length of tooth
helical gear parameters. and depth of tooth the bending stress r is replaced by aver-
Ma et al. [29] in a review of dynamics of cracked gear age bending stress rav . So it is constant for a given position
systems indicated that only photoelasticity technique is of load on the tooth profile. The elastic strain energy stored
available to calculate the gear mesh stiffness of cracked in the gear tooth due to force F can be written as;
tooth of gear pair experimentally, which is proposed by Z
Pandya and Parey [30]. Raghuwanshi and Parey [31] sim- r2av
U¼ dV ð5Þ
plified the calculation of SIF and gear mesh stiffness by v ol E
photoelasticity for cracked spur gear pair and showed In the present case, gear tooth is considered as a can-
the variation in mesh stiffness with angular displacement tilever beam as shown in Fig. 2. Bending stress variation
of gears for full mesh cycle. In the present work, a at different cross sections along the tooth length is calcu-
strain gauge technique has been applied on spur gear lated as [33];
pair system with and without crack to measure the static
strain as well as SIF and subsequently gear mesh stiffness. Mc
r¼ ð6Þ
I
268 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275

Fig. 1. Flow chart of stiffness measurement methodology by strain gauge technique of healthy and cracked gear tooth.

sections along the tooth length to the number of cross sec-

tions along the tooth length. K av is constant for a particular
load position of given gear specification. As the load moves
on the profile the average factor will be changed and calcu-
lated corresponding bending stress distribution. The varia-
tion in K av from engagement to disengagement is plotted
in Fig. 4.
The bending stress varies linearly along the cross sec-
tion from neutral axis to top or bottom edge of the cross
section of tooth as shown in Fig. 5. So the average stress
within the top or bottom portion of the tooth cross section
Fig. 2. Gear tooth with applied loading. from the neutral axis will be the half of the maximum
stress at the top or bottom edge of the rectangular cross
section. The total average bending stress rav in the top or
where M is the bending moment, c is the half tooth thick-
bottom portion of the tooth from the neutral axis along
ness at a particular cross section in the present case and I is
the tooth length as well as along the cross section can be
the area moment of inertia.
written in the terms of maximum bending stress at the
The bending stress distribution by using Eq. (6) is plot-
tooth root rmax as;
ted in Fig. 3. Which is calculated along the tooth length on
the top edge (half of the tooth thickness) of different cross rmax
rav ¼ ð7Þ
sections of the tooth for loading position at tooth tip. The 2kav
geometry data of the gears are taken as given in Table 2. By using Eqs. (7), and (5) can be written as;
The amplitude of normal force F on the tooth profile is Z
taken as 202.6 N to calculate the stress distribution in r2max
U¼ 2
dV ð8Þ
Figs. 3 and 4. The bending stress distributions for other v ol 4K av E
loading positions are not shown here. This stress distribu-
tion is used to calculate average factor K av which is defined By using Hooke’s law r ¼ Ee, the Eq. (8) can be written
as the ratio of tooth root stress ðrmax Þ to the average stress as;
along tooth length ðrav tl Þ. The tooth root stress is the max- Z
e2max E
imum bending stress at the tooth root and rav tl is calcu- U¼ 2
dV ð9Þ
v ol 4K av
lated with the help of Fig. 3 as it is the ratio of
summation of maximum bending stress at different cross where emax is the maximum strain at the gear tooth root.

Fig. 3. Maximum bending stress at different cross sections along tooth length.
 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275
Fig. 4. Average factor variation from engagement to disengagement of gear tooth.
Fig. 5. Bending stress distribution within the cross section of gear tooth.
For calculating the stiffness of healthy gear tooth the
strain energy stored in the gear tooth is calculated by Eq.
(5) which is the simplified form of Eq. (4). For comparing
the Eqs. (4) and (5) the strain energies are calculated for
gear parameters given in Table 2. For this the load is
applied at one particular load position (load 40.21 N at
tip of the tooth) and calculated the strain energies and per-
centage difference between two equations. The result is
found close by 5.98% as shown in Table 1. This shows that
the Eq. (5) can be used to calculate the strain energy stored
in the gear tooth.
The stiffness k of gear tooth can be calculated as
[11,12];
F2
kp;g ¼
2U
where F is the normal force on the gear tooth profile along
the line of action, which is calculated by simple loading
arrangement. The stiffness kp and kg are the tooth stiffness
of pinion and gear respectively.
2.2. Cracked tooth stiffness calculation
The stiffness of cracked gear tooth is the ratio of normal
force on the tooth profile to the deflection of the gear tooth
in the direction of normal force. The deflection of a crack
Table 1
Percentage difference between strain energies of Eqs. (4) and (5).
Strain energy by Eq. (4) Strain energy by Eq. (5) % difference
2.83E03 N mm 3.01E03 N mm 5.98
269
tooth is calculated by strain energy release rate [30]. If ‘a’
is the crack length of a spur gear tooth at the root, B is a
face width, E is the modulus of elasticity and K I is a
mode-I SIF. The deflection of a crack tooth in the direction
of normal force F is calculated as [30,31];
Z a
2B
d¼ ðK 2I Þda ð11Þ
EF 0
The stiffness of cracked tooth is [30,31];
F
kcp ¼ ð12Þ
d
3. SIF calculation by strain gauge
Single strain gauge technique is one of the most
accepted experimental techniques of SIF calculation. To
measure the SIF of a cracked specimen, strain fields near
the crack tip are needed to establish. The region near the
crack tip is divided in three regions as region I, region II
and region III as shown in Fig. 6 [4,7,34].
From the literature, it is clear that the strain field cannot
be represented in the region I. Region I is not the valid
region for accurate evaluation of strain due to three dimen-
ð10Þ
sional stress state and yielding of materials. The strain
evaluation in the region III is also not the appropriate
Fig. 6. Different regions near the crack tip.
270 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275

region due to large numbers of unknowns required in the from the Eq. (15) by placing strain gauge at an angle a as
series of strain field equations [4,7,34]. given below [4,34];
The region II is the region between region I and region
1t
III as shown in Fig. 6, where the strain fields can be repre- cos 2a ¼ k ¼  ð16Þ
1þt
sented by small number of unknowns in the series strain
fields. Dally and Sanford [4] assumed that the region II The another unknown coefficient A1 in Eq. (15) can also
can represent the strain fields by three unknown coeffi- be eliminated or made zero if the relation between h and a
cients with sufficient accuracy. The strain filed in the is selected as;
region II for plane stress state condition can be written as h
[4,7,34]; tan ¼  cot 2a ð17Þ
2
 
1 h h 3h Thus with the help of Eqs. (14), (16) and (17), the Eq.
Eexx ¼ A0 r 2 cos ð1  mÞ  ð1 þ tÞ sin sin
2 2 2 (15) can be written as [4,34];
   
1 h 2 h KI h 1 3h 1 3h
þ 2B0 þ A1 r 2 cos ð1  tÞ  ð1 þ tÞ sin ; 2Gex0 x0 ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi kcos  sin hsin cos 2a þ sinh cos sin 2a
2 2 2pr 2 2 2 2 2
 
1 h h 3h ð18Þ
Eeyy ¼ A0 r2 cos ð1  mÞ  ð1 þ tÞ sin sin
2 2 2
  From Eqs. (16) and (17), it can be seen that the angles a
1 h 2 h
 2tB0 þ A1 r2 cos ð1  tÞ  ð1 þ tÞ sin ; and h depend only on the Poisson’s ratio of material. The
2 2
    values of orientation angles a and h are 61.29° and
3h h 65.16° respectively for Poisson’s ratio 0.3 as given in Ref.
2Gcxy ¼ A0 r 1=2 sin h cos  A1 r 1=2 sin h cos
2 2 [7]. The radial location r is an important parameter of
ð13Þ strain gauge location for accurate measurement of strain
near the crack tip. The minimum value of radial location
where A0, A1 and B0 are unknown coefficients which can be r should be half of the thickness of the specimen [7]. From
evaluated with the help of geometry and boundary condi- Eq. (18) K I can be evaluated with the help of strain in the x0
tions of the specimen and coordinate r and h of point P as direction which can be measured by placing single strain
shown in Fig. 6. gauge in that direction.
The definition of KI, it is related to A0 coefficient in the
above series and can be written as [4,34];
4. Description of experimental set-up
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
K I ¼ 2 p A0 ð14Þ
Strain gauge experimental set-up has been fabricated
The unknown coefficient A0 can be evaluated with the with the help of specimen supporting frame, spur gear
help of single strain gauge location at point P with a orien- loading arrangement, angular rotation of gears measuring
tation from the horizontal axis X as shown in Fig. 7 and device (protector), gear fixing arrangement, strain gauges
consequently KI. The strain component in the direction of and data acquisition system as shown in Fig. 8. In set-up,
x0 at a point P by using strain transformation can be written pinion is free to rotate and gear is also free to rotate but
as [34]; it can be fixed at different angular positions for the obser-
  vation purpose. During the experiment gear has to be fixed
h 1 3h 1 3h
2Gex0 x0 ¼ A0 r 1=2 k cos  sin hsin cos 2a þ sin hcos sin2a at particular meshing position then torque is applied on
2 2 2 2 2
pinion with the help of lever arrangement on the pinion
þ B0 ðk þ cos 2aÞ þ A1 r 1=2
  in anticlockwise direction.
h 2 h 1
 cos k þ sin cos 2a  sin hsin 2a In this experiment the limitations of the space for past-
2 2 2
ing the strain gauge on the gear tooth small strain gauges
ð15Þ
have been used. During pasting the CF350-3AA strain
where k ¼ and t is the Poisson’s ratio of material of the
1t gauges all the precautions and cares were taken. Strain
1þt
gauge installation and experiment were performed at
specimen.The unknown coefficient B0 can be eliminated
room temperature. First surface was abraded, degreased
and cleaned with cleaning solution. The strain gauge was
aligned with right position on the surface (as shown in
Fig. 7) and was pasted with the help of M-Bond 200 bond-
ing adhesive. After pasting the strain gauge the silicone
paste was used to protect them from environment. Data
acquisition system was used to record the output voltage
of the strain gauge and after that strain was calculated
with the help of gauge factor provided by gauge manufac-
ture as 2.
Spur gear and pinion specimen of steel material were
manufactured on CNC wire EDM. The main parameter of
gear and pinion are shown in Table 2. The artificial crack
Fig. 7. Strain gauge location and orientation near crack tip. was inserted with the help of CNC wire EDM at the tooth
 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275 271

Fig. 8. Experimental set-up.

Table 2 space available between the meshing teeth. During the

The main parameters of gear pair. meshing from engagement to disengagement of one tooth,
Parameters Pinion and gear six teeth are involved of pinion and gear. Six strain gauges
No of teeth 13
were placed on six teeth so that the strain could be evalu-
Module 16 mm ated at each tooth root when these teeth would come in
Pressure angle 20° contact during rotation of gears. In case of cracked gear
Face width 6 mm tooth a single strain gauge has been used to measure the
Contact ratio 1.44
strain near the crack tip as shown in Fig. 10(a). The radial
Young’s modulus 200 GPa
Modulus of rigidity 80 GPa distances of strain gauge from the crack tip were kept
Poisson’s ratio 0.3 between 3 mm and 4 mm for different crack lengths.

4.1. Force measurement

root of pinion. Crack length was increased from 1 mm to
5 mm in steps of 1 mm. Pinion tooth with 5 mm root crack
is shown in Fig. 9.
The locations of strain gauges to measure strain at a
point are shown in Fig. 10. In case of healthy gear tooth
the strain gauges were pasted at the tooth root to measure
tooth root strain as shown in Fig. 10(b). The strain gauges
size was selected as small as possible and according to
The torque applied on the input gear is kept low
(19.8 N m) due to narrow face width of the gears. Total
normal force F on the involute tooth profile of spur gear
along the line of action can be evaluated as [31];
Ft
F¼ ð19Þ
cos ;
where F t is the tangential force and ; is the pressure angle.
Tangential force calculation is given in Ref. [31] for this
experimental setup.
The normal force along the line of action is shared dur-
ing double tooth contact pair in two portions and can be
evaluated with the help of load sharing factor which varies
from 0.2F to 0.7F as mentioned in Ref. [35]. Load sharing
factor for the present experiment is shown in Fig. 11
[35]. LPSTC and HPSTC denote the lowest point of single
tooth contact and highest point of single tooth contact
respectively.

5. Results and discussion

In this section the results of strain gauge experiment

Fig. 9. Pinion tooth with 5 mm root crack.
have been plotted and discussed. The first experiment
was performed on healthy gear pairs, for this the strain
was measured on tooth roots of pinion and gear. Fig. 12
shows tooth root strain for pinion and gear for one mesh
cycle. The strain is obtained in microns, it has lower value
272 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275

Fig. 10. Strain gauge locations (a) near crack tip (b) at tooth root.

Fig. 11. Load sharing factor from engagement to disengagement for pinion.

Fig. 12. Tooth root strain variation from engagement to disengagement for healthy gear.

during double tooth contact points (DTCP) and higher val-
ues during single tooth contact points (STCP) for both pin-
ion and gear tooth. In the present case pinion and gear
have been taken as equal number of teeth and equal sizes
for the simplicity but the strain obtained for the gears are
slightly different because of strain gauge location and past-
ing in the experiment.
Second strain gauge experiment was performed on
cracked pinion tooth to calculate KI. This experiment was
performed for different crack lengths viz. 0.4 mm, 1 mm,
2 mm, 3 mm and 5 mm. The calculated KI is shown in
Fig. 13 which clearly shows that the KI is higher during
(STCP) due to full load sharing by the tooth and also it is
increasing from LSTCP to HSTCP due to increasing the dis-
tance of normal load from tooth root. For DTCP (angular
rotation of pinion from 0° to 12° and 26° to 39°) the KI vari-
ation is also shown in Fig. 13. The KI was also calculated for
increasing crack lengths and plotted in Fig. 13. It has been
observed that when crack length is increased the KI is also
increased.
Now, the mesh stiffness has been calculated with the
help of strain obtained by the strain gauge experiment.
Tooth root strain has been used to calculate the mesh stiff-
ness of healthy gear pairs and strain near the crack tip has
been used to calculate the KI and subsequently mesh stiff-
ness of cracked spur gear pair. Mesh stiffness has been
 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275 273

Fig. 13. KI variation of cracked pinion tooth from engagement to disengagement.

Fig. 14. Mesh stiffness variation of gear pairs from engagement to disengagement by strain gauge technique.

plotted in Fig. 14. The average mesh stiffness has been
found 8.182  105 N/mm during double tooth contact pairs
and 5.067  105 during single tooth contact pairs for
healthy gear pair case. The comparison of mesh stiffness
for perfect and cracked gear pair is shown in Fig. 14. The
mesh stiffness reduction has been observed due to crack.
The mean mesh stiffness percentage difference between
healthy and 0.4 mm crack tooth pair is found as 4.93%. It
is seen that the mesh stiffness results of small crack size
gear pair are approaching close to the healthy gear pair.
The mesh stiffness variation curves obtained by strain
gauge technique have been compared with analytical
method given by Wu et al. [14]. For healthy gear case,
mesh stiffness comparison with Wu et al. [14] is shown
in Fig. 15. From Fig. 15 it can be seen that the mesh stiff-
ness variation trend with angular position of pinion is
observed almost same by two methods. At some points
during DTCP the mesh stiffness values are obtained larger
and overall, the mesh stiffness obtained by strain gauge
technique is higher as compared to Wu et al. During STCP
the mesh stiffness values are found higher at every point
but trend of variation is same for both the methods. Mesh

Fig. 15. Mesh stiffness comparison between strain gauge technique and Wu et al. [14].
274 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275
Fig. 16. Mesh stiffness variation and comparison for different crack lengths between strain gauge technique and Wu et al. [14] model.
Table 3
Mean mesh stiffness comparison by two methods in N/mm (105).
Methods Healthy case 0.4 mm crack
Strain gauge 7.143 6.791
Wu et al.[14] 5.747 5.727
% difference 24.29 18.57
stiffness comparison for different crack lengths are shown
in Fig. 16. It is clear from Fig. 16 that mesh stiffness reduc-
tion is increasing with crack lengths in both the methods.
The variation trend in mesh stiffness curves are also same
for both the methods but the reduction in mesh stiffness is
observed large by strain gauge method as compared to Wu
et al. [14]. The comparison is done for five crack lengths
(0.4 mm, 1 mm, 2 mm, 3 mm and 5 mm crack) and
observed that the reduction is higher for larger cracks. At
the time of engagement point the reduction in mesh stiff-
ness for different crack lengths are found almost same by
two methods. At the time of disengagement the reduction
in mesh stiffness by strain gauge method has been
observed very less as compared to Wu et al. [14].
For the simplicity of comparison the mean mesh stiff-
ness terms is used for comparison by percentage differ-
ences in both methods as given in Table 1. The mean
mesh stiffness by strain gauge technique for healthy gear
case has been observed a good match with the analytical
method (Wu et al. [14]) and also for smaller cracks. The
mean mesh stiffness for healthy case by strain gauge tech-
nique is 7.143  105 N/mm and by Wu et al. is
5.747  105 N/mm which is quite close to each other and
the percentage difference is 24.29%. In percentage differ-
1 mm crack 2 mm crack 3 mm crack 5 mm crack
6.407 5.636 5.026 4.327
5.717 5.686 5.651 5.584
12.07 0.88 11.06 22.51
ence, negative sign shows the lower mesh stiffness has
been observed by strain gauge method as compared to
analytical method. In case of smaller cracks say for 1 mm
the mean mesh stiffness has been observed as
6.407  105 N/mm by strain gauge method and
5.717  105 N/mm by Wu et al. [14]. As crack increases
the reduction in mean mesh stiffness is becoming higher
as compared to Wu et al. [14]. The percentage differences
in mean mesh stiffness between two methods for
0.4 mm, 1 mm, 2 mm, 3 mm and 5 mm crack lengths have
found as 18.57%, 12.07%, 0.88%, 11.06% and 22.51%
respectively as given in Table 3.
6. Conclusion
Strain gauge technique has been used to measure the
gear mesh stiffness of healthy gear pairs and cracked gear
pairs arrangement. Mesh stiffness of healthy gear pairs
have been calculated with the help of tooth root strain
obtained by strain gauge experiment. Experimental strain
data has been also measured near the crack tip for calculat-
ing the KI and subsequently stiffness of the cracked pinion
tooth. In the experiment, tooth root strain variation of spur
gears and KI variation of crack pinion have also been anal-
 N.K. Raghuwanshi, A. Parey / Measurement 86 (2016) 266–275
ysed. Experimental gear mesh stiffness has been compared
with analytical method (Wu et al. [14]) and found a good
match in variation trend during mesh cycle as well as mag-
nitude for healthy gear case and for crack lengths. The
mean mesh stiffness by strain gauge method has been
found slightly higher for healthy gear and lower for larger
cracks as compared to Wu et al. It can be concluded that
the experimental method based on strain gauge can be
used for measurement of gear mesh stiffness. However,
the efficiency of this experiment can be improved by tak-
ing care in pasting the strain gauges on the specimen.
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