Comparative Vibration analysis of Spur Gears with Phasing Produced by Injection Moulding and FDM Process

Mechanical engineering

Plastic gears are finding increasing applications in variety of engineering applications, like 2-d printing machine, 3-d printing machine, offset printers, packaging machines etc. The application demands a vibration free drive. Earlier application of metal gears such applications has been replaced by that of moulded plastic gears. Moulded plastic gears used in such application offer a similar vibration characteristic similar to metal gears hence vibration reduction techniques need to apply to solve vibration problem. The internal excitation caused by the variation in tooth mesh stiffness is an important characteristic in causing vibration. This new method variation in mesh stiffness will be reduced the by adding another pair of gears with phasing. This reduces the variation in the mesh stiffness of the final (phasing) gear, because each gear compensates for the variation in the other’s mesh stiffness. To find out the effect of phasing, the experimental set-up was built and the overall vibrations of gears are measured over a wide range of speeds. Readings are taken for nylon moulded gear pair, and integrated ABS polymer gear pair produced using FDM Process. The gears geometry for phasing is developed using Unigraphics Nx-8, and strength analysis is done using ANSYS workbench 16.0. The vibration characteristics such as RMS displacement and acceleration are measured in either cases using a Vibrometer VB-27. The experimental investigations showed considerable reduction in vibration in both Nylon phased gear pair & ABS integrated phased gear pairs using proposed method.

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