Hypoid gear is a key part in the transmission system of automobile drive axle. Its tooth surface meshing quality directly affects the transmission performance of drive axle. In the road test, hypoid gear is often the source of noise or abnormal sound of drive axle. With the more and more strict requirements of customers for the performance of automobile NVH, higher requirements are put forward for the tooth surface design of drive axle hypoid gear.
In order to align hyperboloid gears for better tooth surface design, tooth surface contact analysis (TCA) has been widely used in tooth surface design. At present, it has become a necessary technology and indispensable. Therefore, TCA technology has become the research hotspot of a large number of scientific and technical personnel. For example, by establishing the mathematical model of hypoid gear machining and tooth surface meshing, the tooth surface contact analysis and edge contact analysis technology are studied theoretically. Based on the TCA function of the existing commercial software Masta, the contact area and transmission error of the hypoid gear of the main reducer of the drive axle are simulated and analyzed.
TCA technology plays an important role in the tooth surface design stage. By observing the TCA simulation results, we can evaluate the theoretical cutting parameters, so as to better guide technicians to carry out cutting processing. However, only TCA analysis can not ensure that the designed tooth surface can meet the actual performance requirements, because TCA technology is only a theoretical analysis under no load or light load. Under the actual working condition, the meshing position of the gear will be misaligned and the elastic deformation of the tooth surface will change due to the action of load. Therefore, TCA technology can not reflect the meshing performance of real tooth surface under actual working conditions.
In order to obtain the meshing performance of tooth surface under actual working conditions, further tooth surface loaded contact analysis (LTCA) is needed. Relevant researchers have also carried out some research around the LTCA technology of hypoid gear, such as establishing the mathematical model of load contact analysis of hypoid gear teeth and studying the solution method of load contact analysis. Based on Pro / E and ABAQUS software, the three-dimensional model of spiral bevel gear is established, and the tooth surface contact stress is obtained through finite element analysis. The LTCA bending deformation constraint method of hypoid gear is proposed, and a more accurate tooth surface loading contact area is obtained. Although some achievements have been made in the research of LTCA technology in China, the current research mainly focuses on a pair of gear transmission and does not take into account the load deformation of the drive axle system shell under the actual working conditions, so there will be some deviation between the research results and the reality.
Based on this, the ZHY Gear senior engineer team analyzed the loading performance of the drive axle hypoid gear with the help of Masta software. Firstly, the amount of gear meshing misalignment under actual working conditions is calculated, and then LTCA analysis is carried out under meshing misalignment. The analysis results are closer to the actual situation.