The size and position of the contact area of spiral bevel gear can reflect the contact performance of spiral bevel gear in the process of meshing transmission. In order to explore the change characteristics of the actual meshing area of spiral bevel gear in the process of meshing transmission, the meshing area of spiral bevel gear was tested on the test-bed. In this test, the traditional contact area coloring test method is used to obtain its contact characteristics. First, apply a layer of colorant on the gear tooth surface of spiral bevel gear. In order to obtain good measurement effect, the colorant should be applied evenly. The colorant before engagement is shown in Figure 1. Start the motor and set the driving motor to run at a low speed of 100r / min. After keeping the equipment running for a period of time, the colorant on the contact part on the tooth surface of spiral bevel gear will be ground off due to meshing, so that the actual tooth surface contact area can be observed. The colorant after engagement is shown in Figure 2.
By observing the change characteristics of colorant before and after meshing, it can be found that the contact area of the pair of spiral bevel gears is mainly concentrated in the middle area of tooth width, the length of the contact area in the direction of tooth width accounts for about 70% of the total width of spiral bevel gears, and extends to both ends at the midpoint of tooth width. The contact area in the tooth height direction accounts for about 60%, and is concentrated near the pitch line. The contact area measured in the test is basically the same as that in the finite element analysis. Due to the influence of friction, damping and other factors of spiral bevel gear and other equipment, and the installation error of spiral bevel gear, there are some deviations between the test measurement results and the finite element loading contact analysis results.