A Method for the Design of Ring Dampers for Gears in Aeronautical Applications

In order to reduce resonant vibration of thin walled gears used for aeronautical applications, friction ring dampers may be added to the gear. In order to design the damper geometry, engineers must be able to evaluate its effect on the dynamics of the gear. In this paper a method for the calculation of the forced response of gears with friction ring dampers for aeronautical applications is proposed for the first time. The gear and the damper are modeled by means of FEM and they are coupled by means of contact elements, characterized by tangential and normal contact stiffness. The periodical response of the system is computed in the frequency domain, by means of the harmonic balance method. The harmonic excitation is calculated by means of Fourier analysis of the periodic force profile acting on the gear teeth. The methodology is applied to a case of industrial interest. The effect of the principal design parameters of the ring damper is highlighted.