Influence of the roller profile modification of planet bearing on the vibrations of a planetary gear system

•A multi-body dynamic model of a double row planetary gear system (DPGS) with supported bearings is proposed.•Different profile modification cases for the rollers in the planet bearings are studied.•Influences of the roller profile modification, torque and input speed on the vibrations of DPGS are analyzed. The roller profile of planet bearing (PB) can affect vibrations of double row planetary gear system (DPGS). The DPGSs are generally used in gearboxes, engineering machinery, and retarder, etc. Although different solutions for the vibrations of DPGSs were available in the literature, few works studied the vibrations of DPGSs considering the PBs with different roller profiles. To solve above problem, a multi-body dynamic (MBD) model of a DPGS with six PBs and one supported bearing (SB) in the sun gear is introduced. The mesh stiffness between the mating gears is calculated by the reported methods, as well as that between the mating components of bearings. The linear stiffness models for DPGS are used. The influences of the roller profile modification, torque, and input speed on the vibrations of DPGS are analyzed. The profile modification cases including the fully crowned profile, partially crowned profile with one curvature center, partially crowned profile with two curvature centers, and logarithmic profile are studied. The results show that the appropriate roller profile, torque, and input speed can be great helpful for controlling the vibrations of DPGSs. This work can also provide some help for creating a new way to decrease the vibrations of DPGSs.