A Short Review of Gear Fault Modelling in a Hybrid Modelling Context

Abstract

Gears are commonly used in many critical engineering applications and vulnerable to various modes of failure. Prognostic health management (PHM) of these components is therefore often desirable. Accurate physical models of the gearboxes and its failure modes that are fast to compute have several benefits for PHM. Therefore, analytical gear fault modelling methods, obtained from the potential energy method (PEM) received significant attention. This is because it aims to deliver the accuracy of finite element methods, whilst being much faster to solve. Hence, it is suitable for PHM. This chapter gives a short overview of the modelling philosophy behind spur gears. This philosophy includes the theory behind the PEM and the methods used to induce faults to these physical gear models. The chapter continues by reviewing state-of-the art root crack, chip, surface pit, spall and broken tooth models and showcases the expected meshing stiffness phenomena expected for each fault type. Finally, this chapter gives recommendations for the gear fault modelling field and proposes the use of a generalised stiffness model, which would simultaneously benefit both the PHM task and the gear modelling research community.