Logarithmical Crowning for Spur Gears

Gear tooth modifications, such as lead crowning, are often recommended to compensate for misalignment (e.g. assembly deviations). Lead crowning means that the tooth centre is slightly thicker than the tooth edges and is usually described as a circular arc profile. The use of crowning shifts the peak load from the tooth flank edges and therefore reduces the risk for high contact pressures at the edges, which can otherwise result in a shortened service life. In this study a logarithmical lead profile was compared with traditional lead profile modifications for gears. The profiles were applied on a spur gear pair and a numerical method for contact analysis was used to calculate the contact pressure distribution at the pitch diameter. All lead profiles were optimised with respect to low contact pressure at a specific normal load, a specified maximum misalignment in the plane of action and a tooth flank edge contact criteria. The results show that the logarithmical profile responds differently to misalignments compared to the traditional lead profile modifications. The logarithmical profile resulted in lower maximum contact pressures for small misalignments and is therefore of further interest in terms of achieving a robust gear design