Simulations of Gear-Rolling Element Bearing Interactions in Geared Transmissions

The modular model of geared systems presented in this paper makes it possible to simultaneously account for the contact conditions in gears and rolling element bearings. Gears are modeled as two rigid cylinders connected by distributed mesh stiffnesses while ball and roller bearings contribute to the equations of motion as time-varying, non-linear external forces. Solutions are obtained by combining a Newmark time-step integration scheme, a Newton-Raphson method for ball bearing non-linearity and a normal contact algorithm that deals with the contact problem between the teeth. It is found that the static gear-bearing couplings are generally more important than the dynamic couplings with a significant influence of the gear on the bearing response. Finally, it is shown that, in certain conditions, bearings can generate non-linear parametric excitations of the same orders of magnitude as those associated with the meshing of helical gears.