Measurement of vibratory motions of gears supported by compliant shafts
In this paper, an improved accelerometer-based method is proposed for measurement of motions of parallel-axis gears in torsional, translational and rotational directions. This method uses a family of triaxial accelerometers that are mounted on a shaft flange next to the gears at a given radius. Acceleration signals from the accelerometers are processed using a novel formulation to quantify the motions of a gear in the torsional, rotational (rocking), transverse (line-of-action and off-line-of-action) and axial directions. This measurement system is applied to example spur and helical gear pairs held by shafts having different bending compliances. The experimental results indicate that the proposed accelerometer-based measurement methodology is effective in measuring not only the torsional motions but also the other types of translational, rotational and axial motions of a gear as well as the dynamic transmission error. They also point to the influence of the shaft flexibility on gear vibration amplitudes in these directions.
gear dynamics gear vibration measurements digital signal processing