Crack propagation behavior in spur gear by XFEM and its influence on dynamic characteristics

Abstract

This manuscript inspects the dynamic characteristics of a standard spur gear considering the effect of gear root crack and crack at pitch circle. Cracked gear pair is modeled through extended finite element method with the help of ANSYS software. This method enables the accurate approximation of solution for problems involving non-smooth features like crack within elements. Additionally, the effect of position and length of the crack on the gear structure is observed in terms of the dynamic characteristics, i.e., natural frequencies and vibration shapes. Due to the presence of crack, the natural frequency of the gear changes. These results create a worthy basis for the failure investigation and fault finding of gears.