Howell, L. L., and Midha, A.

, 1994, "A Method for the Design of CompUant error (DTE) as the response variable (Blankenship and Kahra-
Mechanisms with Small-Length Flexural Pivots," ASME JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL
DESIGN, Vol. 116, No. 1, pp. 280-290.
man, 1996). DTE is defined in this study as a relative displace-
Howell, L. L., and Midha, A., 1995, "Parametric Deflection Approximations ment at the gear mesh interface according to DTE = rji^i -
for End-Loaded, Large-Deflection Beams in Compliant Mechanisms," A.SME ^,1,262 where j-^i and ri,2 are the base radii of each gear and #,
JOURNAL OF MECHANICAL DESIGN, Vol. 117, No. 1, pp. 156-165. and 82 are the rotation angles of each gear. Gear pairs having
Howell, L. L., Midha, A., and Norton, T. W., 1996, "Evaluation of Equivalent
Spring Stiffness for Use in a Pseudo-Rigid-Body Model of Large-Deflection
a constant magnitude tip relief of varying extent are tested over
Compliant Mechanisms," ASME JOURNAL OP MECHANICAL DESIGN, Vol. 118, No. a range of speed and torque conditions. Measured DTE values
l,pp. 126-131. are compared and a family of forced response curves is pre-
Huston, Ronald L., 1990, Multibody Dynamics, Butterworth-Heinemann, Stone- sented.
ham, MA.
Millar, A. J., Howell, L. L., and Leonard, J. N., 1996, "Design and Evaluation
of Compliant Constant-Force Mechanisms," Proceedings of the 1996 ASME
Mechanisms Conference, 96-DETC/MECH-1209.
2 Experimental Study
Paul, B., 1979, Kinematics and Dynamics of Planar Machinery, Prentice-Hall, The power circulation type gear test stand introduced earlier
Inc., Englewood Cliffs, NJ. by Blankenship and Kahraman (1995, 1996) was used to mea-
Vogel, S., 1995, "Better Bent than Broken," Discover, May 1995, pp. 62-67. sure the DTE of several unity ratio spur gear pairs having design
Young Warren C , 1989, Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain, sixth edition,
McGraw-Hill, Inc. parameters specified in Table 1. Four gear pairs were tested
under several speed and torque conditions having constant 8 =
10 ^m tip relief with starting roll angle a ranging from a =
20.9 deg (pitch point) to a = 24.8 deg as shown in Fig. 1. The
outer diameter of the test gears corresponds to 27.2 deg and the
highest point of single tooth contact for the test gear pair occurs
Effect of Involute Tip Relief on at 21.7 deg. Actual values of a are 20.9 deg, 22.2 deg, 23.6
deg and 24.8 deg. Tests were conducted over a speed range from
Dynamic Response of Spur Gear 600 to 4100 rpm which corresponds to a gear mesh frequency/,,,
Pairs ranging from 500 to 3400 Hz. Applied torque T was varied
from 0 to 340 Nm. DTE values are given in terms of the root-
mean-square amplitude (rms) A,.,„., = VSHJAf which includes
the first three gear mesh harmonic amplitudes Ai, A2, and A3
A. Kahraman^ and G. W. Blankenship^ (Blankenship and Kahraman, 1996). The measured natural fre-
quency /„ of the test gear pairs varied from 2400 to 3100 Hz
depending on the tip relief and applied torque. In order to make
The influence of gear tooth flank modifications in the form of valid dynamic performance comparisons, all forced response
linear involute tip relief on the torsional vibration behavior of curves and amplitude comparisons are based on dimensionless
a spur gear pair is investigated by using an experimental test frequency/,,//,.
stand. Measured dynamic transmission error (DTE) values are Measured forced response curves, A™,. versus/„,//, are shown
compared and a family of forced response curves is presented. in Fig. 2 for all four modified gear pairs at a single torque level
Guidelines for the design of quiet spur gear sets are also given. T = 340 Nm. Note that the operating speed range includes the
primary resonance near f„,/f„ = 1 and first two super-harmonic
1 Introduction resonances near/„//„ = 5 and/„//„ = \. There are also jumps
The concept of modifying involute gear tooth flanks to reduce in the forced response curves near each of the resonances as a
dynamic loading and noise has been an accepted practice for result of nonlinear behavior caused by loss of tooth contact
many years. Involute modifications generally refer to the inten- (Blankenship and Kahraman, 1995). Focusing only on the off-
tional removal of material from gear tooth flanks so that the resonance regimes of Fig. 2 away from any jumps, a clearly
resulting tooth form is no longer a perfect involute. These modi- has a significant effect on DTE, especially at higher frequencies
fications compensate for tooth deflections under load so that the above/„//„ > 0.6. In an earlier study (Blankenship and Kahra-
resulting transmission error is minimized for a particular range man, 1996), the overall response Arm., was shown to be formed
of operating conditions. Traditional involute modifications con- almost entirely by Ai in this frequency range. Accordingly, gear
sist of tip relief, which is achieved by removing material from pair performance can be assessed by looking only at A| within
the addendum, and involute crowning where material is re- the frequency range/„,//„ > 0.6 as shown in Fig. 3 ( a ) .
moved from both the addendum and dedendum. Lead modifica- Referring to Fig. 3 ( a ) , the gear pair with 6 = 10 fim tip
tions are also often times employed to compensate for misalign- relief having a = 20.9 deg exhibits the lowest A, amplitudes
ments and shaft deflections but are not the topic of this paper. over the entire frequency range 0.6 < f„/f„ < 1.2 at T = 340
Four decades ago, Harris (1958) proposed a relationship be- Nm, followed by gear pairs with a = 22.2 deg, 23.6 deg and
tween tip relief and the load transmitted by a gear pair under 24.8 deg. Measured Ai versus/„//, forced response curves for
quasi-static conditions. Families of measured and predicted the same four tip relieved gear pairs are shown in Figs. 3(b)
transmission error curves at different torque levels, known as and 3(c) for two lower torque levels T = 170 and 85 Nm,
Harris maps, clearly show that for a gear pair having a particular respectively. The influence of a on A1 is again very significant.
tip relief, there exists a design load where the transmission error However, the gear pair with a = 20.9 deg no longer exhibits
is minimized. Other investigators such as Gregory et al. (1964), the lowest A1 amplitudes. At T = 170 Nm, the gear pair haying
Lin, et al. (1994), and Munro and Yildirim (1994) have shown a = 22,2 deg yields the lowest Ai amplitudes as shown in Fig.
that the design load concept is valid under dynamic conditions 3(b) whereas the gear pair with a = 23.6 deg exhibits the
as well using linear and other more complex modifications. This lowest Al amplitudes at T = 85 Nm as shown in Fig. 3(c).
paper considers only the effect of linear involute tip relief on Clearly, the optimum value of a for minimum DTE is dependent
spur gear performance by using measured dynamic transmission on T.
Forced response curves of A\ versus /„,//„ for three tip re-
lieved gear pairs having a = 20.9 deg, 22.2 deg and 23.6 deg
' General Motors Corporation, Advanced Powertrain Group, 37350 Ecorse at the same three torque levels T = 340, 170 and 85 Nm are
Road, Romulus, Ml 48174. shown in Fig. 4. For a particular value of T, the relative ampli-
Contributed by the Mechanisms Committee for publication in the JOURNAL
OF MECHANICAL DESIGN. Manuscript received April, 1998; revised Sept. 1998. tudes Al corresponding to tip relieved gear pairs having different
Associate Technical Editor: K. Kazerounian. a values remain unchanged over the entire frequency range 0.6

Journal of Mechanical Design Copyright © 1999 by ASME JUNE 1999, Vol. 121 / 313

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 Table 1 Spur Gear Design Information
number of teeth 50
module, mm 3.00
pressure angle, degrees 20
face width, mm 20.00
whole depth, mm 7.66
outside diameter, mm 156.00
pitch diameter, mm 150.00
base circle diameter, mm 140.95
root diameter, mm 140.68
involute contact ratio 1.75

<fmlfn < 1-2. However, the rank order of the A i forced response
curves with T changes entirely depending upon the particular
value of a. The variation of A, with Tis illustrated more explic-
itly in Fig. 5 where measured values of Ai are plotted against ten Fig. 2 Measured forced response curves, 4 ^ , versus f„,/f„, for the four
torque levels ranging from 40 to 340 Nm at two representative tip relieved gear pairs with d - 10 ixm and a = 20.9 deg, 22.2 deg, 23.6
frequencies below (/„//, = 0.8) and above (/„//„ = 1.1) the deg and 24.8 deg at T = 340 Nm
primary resonance. These DTE versus T curves take on a char-
acteristic V-shape whereby increasing T at first reduces Ai until
an optimum design torque level Tjesign is reached where Ai is
minimized after which further increases in T result in increasing
Ai. This trend is independent of frequency as seen by comparing 25
Figs. 5(«) and 5(b). For the test gear pairs considered in this a a=20.9 (a)
study, Tdesign = 300 Nm for a = 20.9 deg, T^,,ig^ = 170 Nm for 20 0 a=22.2
a = 22.2 deg and r^esign = 85 Nm for a = 23.6 deg. The design o a=23.6
load for a gear pair having perfect involute tooth forms with & a=24.8
no tip relief or tooth profile modifications is zero. In this case, 15
the A] versus T curve does not have a V-shape but increases
steadily with T. This behavior is also observed for the tip re-
10
lieved gear pair having a = 24.8 deg as shown in Fig. 1 since
the extent of the relief is too short to be effective. Although
not shown here, the same test matrix has been repeated for a
set of gear pairs having tip relief magnitude 5 = 5 /.tm. The net
effect of decreasing 6 is to decrease raesign with all other trends •f?^^ nniiiiiiiiin Ol
being the same.

8=10 \m.
I

a a=20.9 (c)
o a=22.2
%.
0 a=23.6
n a=24.8

Root
<xxxxxxxxx.

0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1 I.I 1.2

Jm I Jn

Fig. 3 Effect of starting roll angle a on measured forced response

curves A^ versus f„lf„ for the four tip relieved gear pairs with S = 10 /urn
Fig. 1 Definition of gear tip relief in terms of magnitude d and starting and a = 20.9 deg, 22.2 deg, 23.6 deg and 24.8 deg: (a) T = 340 Nm (b)
roll angle a for the test gear pairs used In this study T = 170 Nm and (c) T = 85 Nm

314 /Vol. 121, JUNE 1999 Transactions of the ASME

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 15
D T=340Nm (a)
o T=170Nm
A T=85Nm
10 %

"%.J
^^

.'^ ^* ^ ^oT^'^^^J
|4sia6 A444««s««i ^ a3»aoBi»°
JOD

25
D T=340Nm (b)

20 o T=170Nm
A T=85Nm

25
D T=340Nm (c) 200 400
20 o T=170Nm Torque, T [Nm]
A T=85Nm
Fig. 5 Variation of DTE witti applied torque 4 , versus T for tip relieved
15 gear pairs liaving S = 10 tx.m and a = 20.9 deg, 22,2 deg, 23.6 deg, and
24.8 deg: (a) i„li„ = 0.8 and (b) Uf„ = 1.1

10

^^^^^^^^M^a
0.9
0.6 0.7 0.8 1.1
Jm I Jn
Fig. 4 Effect of applied torque T on measured DTE forced response
curves A^ versus f„H„ for tip relieved gear pairs having 5 == 10 jum at T
= 340, 170 and 85 Nm: (a) a = 20.9 deg, (b) a = 22.2 deg and (c) a =
23.6 deg
3 Conclusion
In this study, the effect of involute tip relief on the dynamic
performance of a spur gear pair has been demonstrated experi-
mentally. A simple linear tip relief defined by magnitude 6 and
starting roll angle a has a well behaved and predictable effect
only on the fundamental harmonic amplitude A\ of measured
DTE and is strongly dependent on the applied torque T. For a
gear pair having a tip relief of magnitude b and extent a, a V-
shaped A] versus T curve exists reaching a minimum value at
a particular Design Load Taesign • An optimum tip relief defined
by a and b exists which yields minimum DTE for particular
design load Tjesign • Likewise, for any given tip relief defined by
a and 5, there exist a particular torque level T'de.,ign which yields
minimum DTE. For applications where a gear pair must transmit
a wide range of torque level over a duty cycle, a simple linear
tip relief will produce mixed results either increasing or decreas-
ing DTE depending upon the instantaneous load. In such cases,
alternate types of tooth profile and lead modifications may be
beneficial.
References
Blankenship, G, W„ and Kahraman, A., 1995, "Steady State Forced Response
of a Mechanical Oscillator With Combined Parametric Excitation and Clearance
Type Non-linearity," Journal of Sound and Vibration, Vol. 185, pp. 743-765.
Blankenship, G. W., and Kahraman. A., 1996, "Gear Dynamics Experiments,
Part-I: Characterization of Forced Response," ASME POWER TRANSMISSION AND
1.2
GEARING CONFERENCE, San Diego, California, pp. 373-380.
Gregory, R. W., Harris, S. L., and Munro, R. G., 1964, "Dynamic Behaviour
of Spur Gears," Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol.
178, pp. 207-226.
Harris, L. S., 1958, "Dynamic Loads on the Teeth of Spur Gear's," Proceedings
of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Vol. 172, pp. 87-112.
Lin, H. H., Oswald, F. B., and Townsend, D. P., 1994, "Dynamic Loading of
Spur Gears with Linear or Parabolic Tooth Profile Modifications," Mechanlims
and Machine Theory. Vol. 29, pp. 1113-1129.
Munro, R. G., and Yildirim, N„ 1994, "Some Measurements of Static and
Dynamic Transmission Errors of Spur Gears," Proceedings of International Gear-
ing Conference, Newcastle, UK, pp. 371-376.
Singularities of a Manipulator With
Offset Wrist
R. L. Williams 11*
The singularities of manipulators with offset wrists are difficult
to enumerate. This article presents a numerical study to illumi-
' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.
Contributed by the Mechanisms Committee for publication in the JOURNAL OF
MECHANICAL DESIGN. Manuscript received Apr. 1997; revised Feb. 1999. Associ-
ate Technical Editor: K. Kazerounian.

Journal of Mechanical Design JUNE 1999, Vol. 121 / 315

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