Influence of housing flexibility on the dynamic characteristics of gear transmission systems

The impedance models of gear, shaft, bearing and housing were built respectively, and the impedance synthesis approach was adopted to establish a gear-shaft-bearing-housing coupled dynamics model. Taking a single-stage helical gear pair gearbox as an example, the natural frequency of “gear-shaft-bearing-housing” system was computed, and the gear dynamic mesh force and bearing dynamic reaction force under the time-varying mesh stiffness excitation were obtained. A comparison between the coupled configuration and the uncoupled case shows that: the coupling of housing reduces the system natural frequencies; the influence of housing compliance on the bearing reaction force is more prominent than that on the gear mesh force; whether the gearbox housing will reduce or intensify the system vibration depends on the operation speed.