Influences on the excitation behavior of lightweight planetary gearboxes

One of the main cost drivers in mechanical engineering is material. In order to reduce costs, but also to reduce CO2 emissions in mobile applications, increasing efforts are being made to reduce the mass of components. In gear development, power density as the ratio of transmittable power to gear weight has become one of the key quality criteria. However, saving material usually also leads to lower stiffness of the components. In combination with higher specific powers and the associated higher forces, higher deformations and displacements occur in the gear unit. The gear unit is more elastic overall.Within this paper a measuring cell is presented which allows to measure the influence of elastic deformations and additional misalignments on the excitation behavior. By means of this measuring cell, the influence of certain misalignments and different ring gear rim thicknesses are investigated. The results show modulated excitations and sidebands which are excited depending on the misalignment.