An Estimate of Mesh Stiffness and Load Sharing Ratio of a Spur Gear Pair

Abstract A curve fitted tooth stiffness equation was developed to calculate directly the variable gear mesh stiffness. To improve the accuracy, a tooth profile generating method introduced by Litvin (1989) was employed for finite element idealization. A quadratic finite element model was employed in deriving the tooth stiffness constant at the successive positions of a single tooth as it passed through the zone of loading. The developed stiffness equation is applicable to both the standard full-depth or addendum modified involute gears. Variation of the shared loads introduced by the consideration of mesh stiffness was also investigated.