Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical

Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical

Engineering Science
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Modelling of spur gear mesh stiffness and static transmission error

S Du, R B Randall and D W Kelly
Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Part C: Journal of Mechanical Engineering Science 1998 212:
287
DOI: 10.1243/0954406981521222

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 287

Modelling of spur gear mesh stiffness and static

transmission error

S Du, R B Randall and D W Kelly

School of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia

Abstract: A modified transmission error ( TE ) model is introduced for analysing the effects on the
transmission error of variation of tooth body stiffness with load application point, and a simulation
program for transmission error computation with varying stiffness has been developed. In order to
obtain the case where the tooth deflection component is the dominant source of the TE, nylon gears
were used in this study. All the simulation results have been compared with the measured transmission
errors from a single-stage gearbox. Even though carried out on low precision gears, the validity of
the model for the more flexible nylon gears indicates that the model can be used for analysing the
transmission error of high-precision gear sets.

Keywords: gear vibration, transmission error, torsional vibration, finite element analysis, gear
modelling, nylon gear, optimal iteration

NOTATION 1 INTRODUCTION

C matrix of tooth body compliance over the
Bm
tooth surface
C matrix of tooth contact compliance across
Cm
the tooth surface
m individual meshing pair index
n number of points on the tooth face where
measurements are made
P load vector across a tooth face of pair m
m
d vector of the total (elastic and geometric)
Tm
component of TE across a tooth face, mea-
sured tangential to the base circle in the
transverse plane ( TE is defined as positive
for gear separation)
f(1) (f(2) ) vector of the components of static trans-
gm gm
mission error across a tooth face on gear
(1) and (2) due to any deviations of the
tooth faces from perfect, uniformly spaced
involute surfaces, and misalignment when
no loading is present (taken as negative
when they are equivalent to removal of
material from perfect involute surfaces)
f total deflection due to the shaft centre
S
separation and angular separation under
load
The MS was received on 24 February 1997 and was accepted for
publication on 10 October 1997.
C01397 © IMechE 1998
It is generally accepted that the noise generated by a pair
of gears is mainly related to the gear transmission error.
The total transmission error ( TE ) is defined by Smith
(1) as the difference between the position that the output
shaft of a gear drive would have if the gearbox were
perfect, without errors or deflections, and the actual pos-
ition of the output shaft. In service, the transmission
error is mainly caused by:
(a) tooth geometry errors: including profile, spacing
and runout errors from the manufacturing process;
(b) elastic deformation: local contact deformation from
each meshing tooth pair and the deflections of teeth
and gear bodies due to the transmitted load through
and transverse to the gear rotational axis;
(c) imperfect mounting: geometric errors in alignment,
which may be introduced by static and dynamic
elastic deflections in the supporting bearings and
shafts.
The prediction of gear dynamic loads and gear noise
is always a major concern in gear design. Errichello (2)
and Ozguven and Houser (3) present a great deal of
literature on the development of a variety of simulation
models for both static and dynamic analysis of different
types of gears. The first study of transmission error was
done by Harris (4). He considered three internal sources
of vibration: manufacturing errors, variation in the tooth
stiffness and non-linearity in tooth stiffness due to the
loss of contact. He showed that the behaviour of spur
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288 S DU, R B RANDALL AND D W KELLY

gears at low speeds can be summarized in a set of static be included. The general transmission error can be
transmission error curves. expressed as
In later years, Mark (5, 6) analysed the vibratory exci-
d =C P +C P +f(1) +f(2) +f (1)
tation of gear systems theoretically. He derived an Tm Cm m Bm m gm gm S
expression for static transmission error and applied it to where C is defined as
Bm

C D
predict the various components of the static transmission
Cb Cb · · · Cb
error spectrum from a set of measurements made on a 11 12 1n
mating pair of spur gears. Kohler and Regan (7) dis- Cb Cb
C = 21 22 (2)
cussed the derivation of gear transmission error from Bm e P e
pitch error records transformed to the frequency Cb ··· Cb
domain. Kubo et al. (8) estimated the transmission error n1 nn
of cylindrical involute gears using a tooth contact P is given by
m
pattern.

CD
Recently, Sweeney (9) developed a systematic method p
1
of calculating the static transmission error of a gear set, P = e (3)
based on the effects of geometric parameter variation on m
p
the transmission error. He assumed that the tooth (pair) n
stiffness is constant along the line of action (thin-slice C is defined as
Cm

C D
model ) and that the contact radius for calculation of
Cc Cc · · · Cc
Hertzian deformation is the average radius of the two 11 12 1n
profiles in contact. Sweeney’s model is applicable to Cc Cc
C = 21 22 (4)
cases where the dominant source of transmission error Cm e P e
is geometric imperfections, and is particularly suited to Cc··· Cc
automotive quality gear analysis. The results of his n1 nn
model gave very good agreement with measurements on f(1) (f(2) ) can be represented by
gm gm
automotive quality gears.

In this study, modifications have been made to
Sweeney’s basic model to extend it to higher quality
gears where the tooth deflection component is more
important. The tooth deflection compliance matrix and
the contact compliance vector have been derived using
finite element ( FE ) models; the effects on the trans-
mission error of variation of tooth body stiffness with
load application point have been investigated, and a
simulation program for transmission error computation
with varying stiffnesses has been developed. In order to
get the case where the tooth deflection component is the
dominant source of the TE, nylon gears were used in
this study. All the simulation results have been compared
with the measured transmission errors from a single-
stage gearbox.
2 MESH STIFFNESS
2.1 Overview
The total torsional compliance of two shafts with mesh-
ing gears may be considered as the sum of:
(a) local contact compliance,
(b) gross compliance of the teeth and gear bodies rela-
tive to the gear centre,
(c) compliance of the gear centre due to shaft bending
and torsion, which is here assumed constant, and
the resulting deflections constant for constant load.
For a precision elastic model, all compliance terms must
Proc Instn Mech Engrs Vol 212 Part C
CD
fi
1
f(i) = e (5)
gm
fi
n
2.2 Tooth gross body deflection
The tooth gross body deflection may be considered as
the sum of the following modes:
(a) tooth body bending and shear about an axial line
at the root radius,
(b) tooth body dishing about a radial line in the mode
of a cantilevered plate,
(c) root translation and sinking (tangentially and radi-
ally),
(d ) other deflections due to local rim flexibility.
These four elastic gross body deformation modes con-
tribute to the majority of mesh deflection at the trans-
mitted load. However, the determination of the
compliance of these deformation modes is very difficult
because it is an integral function over the entire loaded
tooth (9). The method developed herein is described in
this section.
The integral function of the compliance of the tooth
body may be discretized into finite grids across the entire
loaded tooth. This simplification has been incorporated
in equations (1) and (2). Figure 1 shows a three-dimen-
sional FE model of a gear tooth. By means of this model,
the effects of load distribution on tooth bending can be
included in the gear transmission error model. The mesh
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 MODELLING OF SPUR GEAR MESH STIFFNESS AND STATIC TRANSMISSION ERROR
Fig. 1 Three-dimensional FE model of a gear tooth
size of the model has been considered for calculation
time and result accuracy with some bench-mark calcu-
lations (10–12). The validity of the model was confirmed
by comparing the calculated results from this model with
the results from reference (13).
A unit force, normal to the tooth profile, can be
applied on each marked position (1–35) on the tooth
surface shown in Fig. 1, respectively, in each calculation.
In this case, use was made of geometric symmetry to
reduce the number of calculations. To subtract Hertzian
contact deformation from the overall displacement field,
the displacements, or elements of C , on the points
Bm
(a, b, ...) of the tooth mid-plane shown in Fig. 1 were
determined in the direction of the force. For any load
distribution across a tooth face, the tooth gross body
deflection can then be determined using matrix C and
B
the principle of superposition for a linear system. m
2.3 Tooth local contact deformation
Tooth local contact deformation can be calculated by
two approaches:
(a) analytical formulations by employing Hertz theory,
(b) finite element analysis.
A typical tooth surface is quite complex topographically.
In order to promote the problem tractability, an approxi-
mation to the true physical situation will need to be
made. Therefore the curvatures of the tooth profile along
the tooth surface at the same roll angle are assumed to
have the same value (i.e. profile errors are neglected for
this component) and the edge effects are assumed to be
much more localized for Hertzian deformation than for
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289
gross body distortion. Thus, a very fine meshed FE
model in two dimensions becomes possible and the
matrix of tooth local contact compliance can be simpli-
fied as a vector. This means not only that the values are
independent of axial position but also that the deflection
is localized to the point of application of the force. This
is justified by the fact that the mesh size is of the order
of 1 mm, while the contact zone is of the order of 25 mm.
The two-dimensional tooth contact FE model is
shown in Fig. 2. The mesh consists of six-node triangle
and eight-node quadrilateral elements generated using
the automatic mesh generator in PRO/ENGINEERA.
The finite element models were solved using msc/
NASTRANA. In order to include the full effect of
Hertzian deformations in tooth contact, the required
element size of the model around the tooth-to-tooth
contact zone has been calculated (14).
Figure 3 shows the detail around the contact zone.
The distance AB/2 should be approximately equal to the
estimated contact semi-bandwidth under the transmitted
load. A non-linear element, the gap element, has been
employed in this model to simulate the non-linear con-
tact situation around the contact zone.
To obtain the contact deformation from FE results,
the tooth bending displacement must be subtracted from
the overall displacement field. The implementation for
the subtraction is shown in Fig. 4 (15). The contact
deformation is obtained from the difference between the
contact point and intersection point distance before and
after load application.
Figure 5 shows the results from this model and
compares them with results from some analytical
formulations which are variant forms of Hertz contact
theory (16, 17). The load transmitted by the gear set is
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290 S DU, R B RANDALL AND D W KELLY

Fig. 4 Tooth with mid-plane

70 N m. This figure demonstrates that the tooth contact

model in this study is valid.

2.4 Geometric error simulation

The geometric error simulation [or calculation of the
terms f(1) , f(2) and f in equation (1)] can be carried out
gm gm S
as follows (9):
Fig. 2 Two-dimensional FE model of teeth in contact 1. Establish a pre-processor document with basic gear
geometric data input and gear geometric error data
input.
2. Make local calculations for active profile roll dis-

Fig. 3 Detail of contact zone of two-dimensional FE model

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 MODELLING OF SPUR GEAR MESH STIFFNESS AND STATIC TRANSMISSION ERROR 291

Fig. 5 Gear pair contact deformation results

tances, contact ratio and other parameters that are

necessary in geometric error simulation.
3. Run a solver in MATHCAD (18) to get the pitch
error, tooth profile error and lead error, in terms of
mean value and deviations from the mean of low-
order errors such as slope, curvature and fullness.
4. Use the calculated geometric error to simulate the
unloaded or loaded geometric transmission error.

3 TRANSMISSION ERROR MODEL

IMPLEMENTATION

3.1 Overview
After determining the matrix of tooth gross body com-
pliance and vector of tooth local contact compliance, the
TE model can be implemented by using an optimal iter-
ation method. Figure 6 is a flow chart of the TE model
algorithm. The geometric errors of the steel gear set were
directly employed from reference (9), but those for the
nylon gears were based on a reduced set of measurements
at four positions around the gear rather than for each
tooth.
3.2 Optimal iteration method
In this study, the simplex method of direct search has
been used in optimal iteration. The principle of the sim-
plex method is described in reference (19). Different
objective functions will need different search strategies.
The specific strategy of the two-dimensional problem in
this study is as follows:
(a) at first, establishing an initial equilateral triangle
using the start point ‘P’ which is defined as the cen-
troid of the triangle, as shown in part A of Fig. 7;
(b) along the direction from the centroid to the lowest
value point, moving the triangle to find the relative
optimal value, as shown in part B of Fig. 7;
C01397 © IMechE 1998
Fig. 6 Flow chart of the algorithm of the TE simulation
(c) calculating the side centroids of the triangle and then
make a turning to find the better direction of the
iteration, as shown in part C of Fig. 7;
(d ) if the moving and turning strategies fail, shrinking
the triangle to find the lowest value, as shown in
part D of Fig. 7;
(e) if the size of the triangle is smaller than the given
value, stop the iteration and output the result.
3.3 Implementation in the TE model algorithm
In the TE model algorithm, five input files are needed.
Two of them are gear geometric errors which were calcu-
lated in MATHCAD (18). Another two files are the
tooth body bending compliance matrix and the tooth
contact compliance vector. The fifth file contains iter-
ation control parameters which can control the start
mesh angle, the resolution of the TE signal and the
output data length.
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292 S DU, R B RANDALL AND D W KELLY

Fig. 7 Strategy of the modified simplex method

Because real power transmission gear sets are subject
to torque fluctuations of some degree, the TE model
should be able to include the effects of torque fluctu-
ation. In this study the torque has been assumed to be
constant, but it would be possible to include torque
fluctuations based on measurements.
4 MODEL VALIDATION—A COMPARISON OF
TEST RIG AND SIMULATION RESULTS
As mentioned in Section 1, the major objective of the
TE model is to allow simulation of the tooth mesh stiff-
ness to assist in understanding the relative importance
of this stiffness with respect to transmission error gener-
ation, in particular at the tooth-meshing frequency and
its harmonics.
In order to demonstrate the contribution of the tooth-
meshing stiffness in the transmission error, two types of
gear were used in the validation program:
Type 1: hobbed, shaved, heat-treated and ground spur
steel gears
Type 2: hobbed, shaved, spur nylon gears
Both types of gear contain geometric errors of such a
degree that they may be considered as below automotive
production standards. The parameters of the gear sets
that were used in the FE models and the simulation are

Fig. 8 Gear mesh stiffness: upper graph is for steel gear, lower graph is for nylon gear, solid line is for
standard alignment, dashed line is for misalignment
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 MODELLING OF SPUR GEAR MESH STIFFNESS AND STATIC TRANSMISSION ERROR 293

shown in Table 1. Since Young’s modulus for the type

of nylon used can vary over a range of 2 : 1, the actual
value was determined from measurements of the deflec-
tion of two discs cut from the same stock material as
the actual gears and these deflections were benchmarked
against analytical and finite element models. The mean
value of Young’s modulus of the two discs was used and
the standard deviation of these moduli was only 3.4
per cent.
Figure 8 shows the gear mesh stiffnesses for a steel
gear set and a nylon gear set for standard alignment and
angular misalignment of 1/500. The upper graph is for
the steel gear set from which the difference of the mesh
stiffness between the standard alignment case and mis-
alignment case has been illustrated. This difference has
been found to have only a minor effect on the TE signals Fig. 10 Simulated TE of steel gear (standard alignment):
(9). In contrast, the lower graph depicts a great differ- upper graph is in time domain, lower graph is in fre-
ence for the nylon gears because of the considerably quency domain, spur gear=32:32, input shaft
lower stiffness near the edges. That means for the type speed=4 Hz, input shaft torque=70 N m
of gears where the tooth deflection component is the
dominant source of the TE, the mesh stiffness will be
affected significantly by misalignment. Consequently, as mentioned above, the effect of both load and align-
this misalignment will affect the gear transmission error, ment variations was small. Figures 11 and 12 show the
as seen in the following results. above-mentioned effect of misalignment on the nylon
The test rig measurement results and the correspond- gears. The estimated 33 per cent stiffness variation results
ing simulation results are given in Figs 9 to 14. Only one in a change in the simulation TE at the tooth mesh fre-
result is shown for steel gears (Figs 9 and 10) because, quency of 13.8 per cent, confirmed by a measured change
of 12.3 per cent. Figures 13 and 14 show the increase in
Table 1 Gear set parameters TE at a load of 70 N m, with predicted and measured
results agreeing very well, in particular at the tooth mesh
Steel Steel Nylon Nylon
pinion gear pinion gear
frequency.
Figure 15 shows the TE amplitudes of the gear mesh
Module (mm) 3.0788 3.0788 3.0788 3.0788 component under different load cases for the two types
Tooth number 32 32 32 32
Young’s modulus (GPa) 210 210 3.19 3.19
of gear. This demonstrates that, for steel gears, both the
Poisson’s ratio 0.3 0.3 0.35 0.35 simplified method (9) and the modified method in this
Tooth facewidth (mm) 23.5 23.5 23.5 23.5 study agree well with the measurements, but for nylon
gears the modified method, in which the more compli-
cated optimization and iteration procedure was used,
agrees much better than the simplified method.
There are noticeable differences in the low shaft order
component amplitudes and the degree of signal ampli-
tude modulation. There are several possible sources for
these discrepancies:

1. The speed controller’s open-loop control limitations

Fig. 9 Measured TE of steel gear (standard alignment): upper
graph is in time domain, lower graph is in frequency
domain, spur gear=32:32, input shaft speed=4 Hz,
input shaft torque=70 N m
C01397 © IMechE 1998
could result in torque fluctuation which could affect
the TE amplitude modulation.
2. Different load cases will affect the degree of lateral
shaft support offered by the shaft coupling. This in
turn will introduce some degree of gear spacing
fluctuation which will affect the amplitude of the
low shaft order component. Measurement results in
Figs 11a and 13 support this.
3. The actual geometric deviations of the profiles were
not known in every detail, in particular for the nylon
gears, where measurements were made at only four
positions around the gears.
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294 S DU, R B RANDALL AND D W KELLY

Fig. 11 Measured TE signals of nylon gear: input shaft speed=4 Hz;, input shaft torque=40 N m

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 MODELLING OF SPUR GEAR MESH STIFFNESS AND STATIC TRANSMISSION ERROR 295

Fig. 12 Simulated TE signals of nylon gears: input shaft speed=4 Hz, input shaft torque=40 N m

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296 S DU, R B RANDALL AND D W KELLY

Fig. 13 Measured TE of nylon gear (standard alignment): upper graph is in time domain, lower graph is in
frequency domain, spur gear=32 : 32, input shaft speed=4 Hz, input shaft torque=70 N m

Fig. 14 Simulated TE of nylon gear (standard alignment):

upper graph is in time domain, lower graph is in fre-
quency domain, spur gear=32 : 32, input shaft
speed=4 Hz, input shaft torque=70 N m

A further development of this TE model that would

enable simulation of the TE of helical gears is possible.
For the tooth bending deflection, the FE model of the
tooth body would be created using helical geometry. For
the tooth local contact deformation, the two-dimen-
sional FE model could be adjusted for the inclination of
the contact lines. In the optimal iteration program, the
contact lines could still be calculated as in Sweeney’s
simplified method (9).

5 CONCLUSION

From the foregoing results, the model in this study may Fig. 15 Tooth mesh fundamental amplitude of TE (standard
be considered to be successfully validated for its intended alignment)
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 MODELLING OF SPUR GEAR MESH STIFFNESS AND STATIC TRANSMISSION ERROR
purpose; i.e. the model focuses on the variation of the
tooth body stiffness and the tooth local contact stiffness.
Even though carried out on low precision gears, the val-
idity of the model for the more flexible nylon gears indi-
cates that it could be used for analysing the transmission
error of high-precision gear sets.
Misalignment for the steel spur gears tested only had
a minor effect on the TE signals, but for the nylon spur
gears, in contrast, there was quite a large difference in
the TE signals. This model can thus be used for pre-
dicting the TE variation with alignment, and the prin-
ciples should extend to all cases where tooth deflection
is dominant (e.g. high-precision gears).
In addition to the extension to helical gears, discussed
above, a further improvement of the model would be to
consider the effects of speed and inertia on the TE low
shaft order components and tooth mesh component; i.e.
the model should be developed to a dynamic model.
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