Compensation modification of plastic gear tooth profile considering meshing deformation

Abstract

The plastic gear is widely used in agricultural equipment, electronic products, aircraft, and other fields because of its light weight, corrosion resistance, and self-lubrication ability. However, it has a limited range of working conditions due to the low modulus and thermal deformation of the material, especially in high-speed and heavy-duty situations. A compensation modification method (CMM) is proposed in this paper to restrain the heat production of the plastic gear tooth surface by considering the meshing deformation, and the corresponding modification formulas are derived. Improving the position of the maximum contact pressure (CP) and the relative sliding velocity (RSV) of the tooth surface resulted in a 30% lower steady-state temperature rise of the modified plastic gear tooth surface than that of the unmodified plastic gear. Meanwhile, the temperature rise of plastic gear with CMM is reduced by 19% compared with the traditional modification of removal material. Then, the influences of modification index and the segment number of modification on the meshing characteristics of plastic gear with CMM are discussed, such as maximum CP and steady-state temperature rise, RSV, transmission error, meshing angle, and contact ratio. A smaller segment number and modification index are beneficial to reduce the temperature rise of plastic gear with CMM. Finally, an experiment is carried out to verify the theoretical analysis model.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

plastic gear / compensation modification / meshing deformation / temperature rise / tooth profile

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