A novel method to reduce the fluctuation of mesh stiffness by high-order phasing gear sets: Theoretical analysis and experiment

•A novel high-order phasing gear is proposed to reduce the fluctuation of mesh stiffness and the key parameters of high-order phasing gear are given, which provides new ideas for gear development and vibration reduction of gear transmission.•The mesh stiffness of the high-order phasing gear pair is derived on the basis of the time-varying mesh stiffness of spur gear pair. And key parameters of the high-order phasing gear pair are optimized with the aim of achieving near zero fluctuation of mesh stiffness.•Effectiveness of applying high-order tuned gears to decreasing gear meshing vibration and the optimal key parameters are verified via transmission error and vibration displacement experiment. The vibration, triggered by the periodic fluctuation of time-varying mesh stiffness, is difficult to be reduced especially for the traditional spur gear transmission. In this paper, to reduce the fluctuation of mesh stiffness, a novel high-order phasing gear is proposed and verified by theoretical analysis and experiments. The contact line is studied in terms of the high-order phasing gear pair. Based on the time-varying mesh stiffness of spur gear pair, the mesh stiffness of the high-order phasing gear pair is derived. And the phasing parameters of the high-order phasing gear pair are optimized with the aim of achieving the near zero fluctuation of mesh stiffness. Moreover, it is proved that the application of the phasing gear sets effectively decreases gear meshing vibration, and the optimal staggered phase angle is verified by experiment.