An analytical model for accurate and numerically efficient tooth contact analysis under load, applied to face-milled spiral bevel gears

An analytical model that allows for a computationally efficient analysis of face-milled spiral bevel gears, is presented. The methodology builds on the consideration that the mating tooth flanks are designed to transmit motion in a nearly conjugate manner. A multibody approach to tooth contact analysis is proposed that assumes contact between rigid surfaces. By taking advantage of the action surfaces for each flank pair, contact is detected in a computationally efficient and accurate way. An analytical load distribution model is used to translate the detected penetration into resulting contact forces, under the assumption that the flank penetration matches the deformation of the teeth if they were flexible. To account for the global tooth deformation Tredgold's approximation in combination with a set of expressions based on beam theory are utilized, while the local contact deformation is modeled based on Hertz theory. The methodology is validated against nonlinear finite element simulations. A comparison in terms of transmission error, contact patterns and contact pressure is provided. Contrary to FE simulations the proposed methodology requires significantly less computational effort, allowing further extension to optimization or system analysis problems.