Novel monitoring method of gear meshing based on combination of continuous shots with a thermography and prediction of tooth surface temperature by heat circuit network model

Abstract

It is well known that the tooth surface accuracy greatly influences the vibration in gear meshing. The hypoid gear used in automobile differential has a complex shape, and the estimation of the contact conditions is difficult. Therefore we propose a estimating method of the tooth meshing contact conditions with a high response and high speed-camera thermography, based on monitoring the temperature distribution during meshing between the pinion and the gear. In the present report, we attempt to construct to a novel combined infrared image from the temperature data on the extraction line in each continuous shot thermal image, which is composed of temperature distribution on the tooth surface at the same time after tooth meshing. As a result, a proposed infrared image is found to be effective to estimate tooth meshing. Moreover, we develop a predicting method of tooth surface temperature by constructing a heat circuit network model, based on measured temperature on the tooth surface from a combined infrared image. Comparing calculating results with experimental ones, it can be seen that the constructed model is considered to be sufficient accuracy.