Experimental Analysis of Tooth Breakage Effect on the Vibration Characteristics of Spur Gears

Abstract

Various industrial applications have wider use of gears. Vibration analysis has been generally utilized as a part of condition monitoring of rotary machinery and engineering structures in order to prevent failure, increase reliability and decrease maintenance cost of the system. The aim of this study is to analyze the vibration produced due to the single as well as double tooth breakage of spur gear at five different RPMS. First, the test model was developed and then specific fault was introduced in driven gear at 25, 50, 75 and 100% of single and double tooth breakage and data was acquired for individual fault using wireless tri-axial accelerometer. The recorded data was then analyzed using different statistical techniques and results have been plotted. The analysis shows that maximum vibration amplitude is produced at 75% of tooth breakage and tends to reduce at 100% of tooth breakage due to increase in the Transmission Error (TE). The Power Spectral Density (PSD) analysis suggests that amplitude of Gear Mesh Frequency (GMF) first rises up to 75% of tooth breakage and then suddenly falls down due to complete tooth removal but sidebands of Gear Mesh Frequency (GMF) tends to rise as tooth breakage increases. Also the other Statistical parameters Root Mean Square (RMS), Crest Factor (CF), Kurtosis and Skewness are analyzed and are very important for complete understanding of the phenomenon.