Application of Multiple-Scales Method for the Dynamic Modelling of a Gear Coupling

Thin-walled gears, designed for aeronautical applications, have shown very rich dynamics that must be investigated in advance of the design phase. One of the signatures of their dynamics is coupling due to the meshing teeth which stand-alone gear models cannot capture. This paper aims to investigate the dynamics of thin-walled gears considering time-varying coupling due to the gear meshing. Each gear is modelled with lumped parameters according to a local rotating reference system and the coupling is modelled by a traveling meshing stiffness. The set of equations of motion is solved by the non-linear Method of Multiple-Time-Scales (MMTS). MMTS is a very powerful technique that is widely used to solve perturbation problems in many fields of mathematic and physics. In the analyzed numerical test case, the relevance of gear coupling is demonstrated as well as the capability of the MMTS to capture the fundamental features of the system dynamics. In this study the analytical methodology, which uses MMTS, allows for the calculation of the forced response of the system made of two meshing gears despite the presence of a parametric quantity, i.e., the mesh stiffness. The calculation is performed in the frequency domain using modal coordinates, which ensures a fast computation. The result is compared with time domain analysis for validation purposes.