Effect of load and speed on warship power rear drive system helical gear anti-scuffing properties in thermal elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication

The key parameters which caused the scoring failure of helical gears are operating load and speed. In this study, the simulations using geometric meshing theory were carried out to investigate the effect of load and speed of warship transmission helical gear system on thermal elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication. The numerical algorithm for the analysis of three-dimensional thermal elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication used in this work has advantage that the film pressure and distributions can be calculated from Reynolds equation for all mixed lubrication regions without any specific boundary condition for the edge of solid contact region. Oil film pressure, film thickness as well as film temperature under different load and speed conditions were obtained and compared. In addition, experimental tests were conducted to determine gear surface temperature under different load and speed conditions. This work provided a guidance to understand the load- and speed-dependent thermal elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication