Study on the influence of tooth surface wear on the lubrication performance of double involute gear transmission

Abstract To improve the lubrication performance of double involute gears(DIGs) and reduce tooth surface wear, this paper establishes a quasi-static tooth surface wear (TSW) analysis model according to the modified Archard wear equation under the mixed elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) condition, and proposes a numerical calculation method for the lubrication characteristics considering the influence of TSW based on the coupling relationship between TSW, meshing characteristics and lubrication characteristics. Based on this, the effect of TSW on lubrication characteristics with the working condition parameters, tooth waist order parameters and roughness is also studied. The research shows that the effect of TSW on the lubrication characteristics of DIGs is closely related to the accumulated tooth surface wear depth. TSW can deteriorate the lubrication state between meshing tooth surfaces, the early TSW under the mixed EHL state has less effect on its lubrication characteristics, and has significant influence on the lubrication characteristics near the meshing in and meshing out positions. Under the conditions of low velocity, high torque and large roughness, TSW has a greater effect on the lubrication characteristics.However, the influence of TSW on the lubrication characteristics is small with the variation of tooth waist order parameters.