Behavior of lubricant fluid film in gears under dynamic conditions

This paper presents a new method for modeling the fluid film lubrication in gears, considering the actual meshing conditions and gear dynamics. The model takes into account both the elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) and the dynamic load between the mating tooth pair. The EHL film is described as a fully flooded elliptical contact. The present approach is validated by means of comparison with other methods found in the literature, in which dynamic effects were neglected. The effect of the gear dynamics on the fluid film is investigated. It is shown that pressure and film thickness are strongly modified by the dynamics of the gear pair. The dependence of the dynamic gear lubrication on dimensionless parameters is investigated: a new dimensionless inertia parameter is added to the standard Moes' parameters. These parameters are useful to describe the lubrication conditions in gear pairs.