Mesh stiffness calculation of helical gears with profile modification

Time-varying contact line and mesh stiffness are important parameters for dynamic investigation of helical gear pair with profile modification; however, the calculation methods of the time-varying mesh with high accuracy and high efficiency are also very limited currently. A new mesh stiffness calculation method for helical gear pairs with profile modification is proposed. The new method is conducted by cutting the helical gear tooth into slices to obtain the change of the contact line and the time-varying mesh stiffness with considering the change of each slice's engagement performance introduced by the profile modification. Then, the mesh stiffness of the assumed three different modification cases is calculated by using the proposed method. The calculated results indicate that the proposed method can be used to calculate the mesh stiffness of helical gear pairs, especially of those with tooth profile modification.