A study on modeling and optimization of tooth microgeometry for a helical gear pair

The wind industry grew in the first decade of the 21st century at rates consistently above 20% a year. For wind turbine, gearbox failure can be extremely costly in terms of repair costs, replacement parts, and in lost power production due to downtime. For the gearbox used in wind turbine, gear transmission error (T. E.) is the excitation that leads the tonal noise known as gear whine, and radiated gear whine is also the dominant source of noise in the whole gearbox. In this paper, gear tooth micro-modification for the high speed stage was used to compensate for the deformation of the teeth due to load and to ensure a proper meshing to achieve an optimized tooth contact pattern. The gearbox was firstly modeled in Romaxdesigner software, and then the various combined tooth modification were presented, and the prediction of transmission under the loaded torque for the helical gear pair was investigated, the transmission error, transmission harmonics, normal load distribution were also obtained and compared before and after tooth modification under one torque. The simulation results showed that the transmission error and normal load distribution under the load can be minimized by the appropriate tooth modification. It is a good approach where the simulated result is used to improve the design before the prototype is available for the test.