Dynamic modeling and vibration analysis of a cracked 3K-II planetary gear set for fault detection

The 3K planetary gear system is a basic planetary transmission structure with many advantages over the 2K-H planetary gear system. However, the vibration characteristics will be more complicated due to the increase of central gears meshing with each planet gear simultaneously. In this paper, a lumped-parameter model for a 3K-II planetary gear set was developed to simulate the dynamic response. The time-varying stiffness of each meshing pair for different gear tooth root crack faults is calculated via the finite element method. By considering the effect of time-varying transmission paths, the transverse synthetic vibrations are obtained. Subsequently, the feasibilities of transverse synthetic vibration signals and output torsional vibration signals as reference for fault diagnosis are analyzed by studying the time-domain and frequency-domain characteristics of these two vibration signals. The results indicate that both the transverse synthetic vibration signals and output torsional vibration signals can be used for fault identification and localization of the 3K-II planetary gear train, and yet they both have their limitations. Some results of this paper are available as references for the fault diagnosis of 3K planetary gear trains.

Dynamic Analysis of a Fault Planetary Gear System under Nonlinear Parameter Excitation

In order to facilitate lubrication and avoid the gear stuck due to thermal expansion, there needs to be a gap between the tooth profiles. As a strong nonlinear factor, the backlash will affect the motion state of the planetary gear system. When the gear failures occur, the motion state of the system will accordingly change. In this study, the meshing stiffness of the gear pair with tooth tip chipping fault is calculated by combining the analytic geometry method and the potential energy method. Then, a new nonlinear dynamic model including tooth backlash, time-varying mesh stiffness, and manufacturing error is established to study the dynamic response of the system. The equations of motion are derived by the Lagrangian method and solved by the numerical integration method. Taking the excitation frequency and tooth backlash as the variation parameters, respectively, the dynamic characteristics of the system are analyzed by comparing the global bifurcation diagrams between the health system and the fault system, and the path of the system into chaos is revealed. At the same time, the local characteristics of the system are revealed through the phase diagrams and Poincaré maps. The results show that with the variation of excitation frequency and tooth backlash, the fault system presents a more complex motion state. This study can provide the theoretical support for dynamic design and fault diagnosis of planetary gear transmission systems under the environment of gear fault-prone.

Dynamic characteristics analysis of planetary gear system with internal and external excitation under turbulent wind load

According to the working characteristics of a 1.5 MW wind turbine planetary gear system under complex and random wind load, a two-parameter Weibull distribution model is used to describe the distribution of random wind speed, and the time-varying load caused by random wind speed is obtained. The nonlinear dynamic model of planetary gear transmission system is established by using the lumped parameter method, and the relative relations among various components are derived by using Lagrange method. Then, the relative relationship between the components is solved by Runge Kutta method. Considering the influence of random load and stiffness ratio on the planetary gear transmission system, the nonlinear dynamic response of cyclic load and random wind load on the transmission system is analyzed. The analysis results show that the variation of the stiffness ratio makes the planetary gear have abundant nonlinear dynamics behavior and the planetary gear can get rid of chaos and enter into stable periodic motion by changing the stiffness ratio properly on the premise of ensuring transmission efficiency. For the variable pitch wind turbine, the random change of external load increases the instability of the system.

Modal properties of a two-stage planetary gear system with a Timoshenko beam as the intermediate shaft model

This study investigates the mode properties of a two-stage planetary gear (TSPG) system with short intermediate shafts. For this purpose, the rotating intermediate shafts in this system are considered Timoshenko beams and compared with the Euler-Bernoulli beam model. The gyroscopic effect is also considered in the TSPG model. The natural frequencies are given, and mode energy analysis is applied to quantify the importance of intermediate shafts in the total TSPG system. The vibration modes are speed dependent, and three mode types exist. The influence of the rotational speed, length of intermediate shafts and number of planets is evaluated.

Root Crack Identification of Sun Gear in Planetary Gear System Combining Fault Dynamics with VMD Algorithm

Planetary gearbox is widely used in various low-speed machines due to its large transmission ratio. However, the gears in a planetary gearbox are prone to the mechanical faults due to the complex dynamic heavy load. Vibration frequencies caused by an early tooth root crack of sun gear are usually difficult to accurately extract, so its fault diagnosis is one of the main challenges of planetary gearbox reliability. In this paper, a simplified tooth root crack model of sun gear is proposed, and then a rigid-flexible coupled dynamics model of the whole planetary gear system is constructed. By the numerical simulation, the fault frequencies caused by a tooth root crack of sun gear are obtained. A Variational Mode Decomposition (VMD) algorithm for the vibration frequency extraction is proposed. The measured vibration signals are decomposed into the sparse Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) by the VMD, and then the IMFs are further analyzed by the spectral method to accurately extract the crack-induced frequency components. The experimental results show that the proposed dynamics model and VMD method are feasible; an error between the characteristic frequencies from the tested signal analysis and the theoretical calculation is less than 1%.