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7.1 INTRODUCTION
Gearbox design optimization has been facing with lot of challenges. When
designing a gear reducer, there are many important factors to be considered such as
weight, size, strength, durability material and geometry. Material of the gear
reducer has a key impact on its weight. In this chapter, a two-stage gear reducer is
optimized with major conflict functions like minimization of gear material volume
and maximization of power as objectives with design stresses as the constraints.
Here two gearbox design problems have considered. For the second design
problem two different types of materials are considered in this study.
A Two stage Gear box problem was adopted from Peter R. N. Childs
(2004) to test the effectiveness of the Meta heuristic algorithm. The test problem as
follows: A gearbox is required to transmit 18 kW from a shaft rotating at 2650
rpm. The desired output speed is approximately 12 000 rpm. For space
limitation and standardization reasons a double step-up gearbox is requested with
equal ratios.
Z1
Z4
Lay Shaft
Z2
Z3
7.2.3 Assumptions
The various assumptions involved in the work are described below:
All the gears in the gearbox are spur gears.
The thicknesses of the gears are same in a gear-pair.
In a gear-pair, wheel is assigned the larger number of teeth between the
mating gears.
Same number of teeth in pinion and gear for both pair are adopted.
Equations (7.2) and (7.3) represent the above said objective functions,
Maximize, f1 = P, Where P(L) ≤ P≤ P(U) (7.2)
2 2
2 2
Minimize,f2 = m ( Z pi
Z wi
)b i for i = 1, 2. (7.3)
4 i 1
7.2.5. Design Constraints
For the gear reducer layout shown in Figure 7.1 there are two gear-pairs.
By considering fixed number of teeth Zi varying thickness values bi and power
delivered P, each gear must satisfy two constraints mentioned by Equation (7.4)
and (7.5) were adopted from Deb and Jain (2003).
The bending and compressive stresses developed in the ith gear-pair are
calculated by the Equations (7.6) and (7.7).
97500 PK C K d (ri 1)
σbi= (7.6)
w i a i b i m ri y i cos
Z wi
ri (7.8)
Z pi
The thickness value should lie between lower and upper limit values,
these constraints are shown by the Equation s (7.9)
With the number of teeth in gears are also kept as decision variables, the
resulting problem must involve additional constraints considering the following
aspects.
The maximum gear-ratio rmax in any gear-pair must not exceed a limit.
Equation (7.10)
Z wi
r m ax , for i = 1,2. (7.10)
Z pi
Number of teeth in each gear pair should be integers and value must be
greater than its lower limit.
Table 7.1 gives the details about two stage gear box and Table 7.2 shows the input
parameters and its bounds for test problem.
Table 7.1 Two stage Gearbox Details
In this case the module is kept constant (module = 2 mm). The variables
are Power, Gear thickness and Number of teeth is varied. The optimized results are
tabulated in Table 7.3.
Power
Design Gear Thickness Power Volume to
No. of Teeth Volume
Tool (mm) (kW) (mm3)
ratio
(%)
Existing Z1=38 Z2=18 b1=23 b2=23
18 231060 7.79
design Z3=38 Z4=18 b3=18.6 b4=18.6
Z1=38 Z2=18 b1,2=22.7
TM 18 228283 7.88
Z3=38 Z4=18 b3,4=18.4
Z1=38 Z2=18 b1,2=20.6
SFHM 18.08 212730.9 8.50
Z3=38 Z4=18 b3,4=17.7
From the above tables 7.4 and 7.5, it clearly shows that, large volume of
gear box is reduced by SFHM and the same time power also considerably
increased from the existing design. Power to Volume ratio also decreses as
increase of module.
Optimum values for all the decision variables such as the number of gear
teeth, thickness, module, and power are to be determined taking into consideration
of two different gear materials. This would increase the power and also reduce the
volume of gear reducer. The test problem is solved by using Alloy Steel (40Ni
2Cr1 Mo28) and 45C8 as gear materials with SFHM technique. Different gear
materials have a vital impact on the gear reducer’s weight as proposed by Buiga
(2012).
A Two stage Gear reducer test problem is adopted as follows: “A two stage gear
spur gear reduction unit with 20 full depth involute teeth. The input shaft rotates
at 1440 rpm and receives 10kW power through a flexible coupling. The speed of
output shaft should be approximately 180 rpm. All the gears are made of plain steel
45C8”.
The test problem is solved in two cases. In Case I module is kept constant and
other variables like power, thickness and number of teeth are varied. While in Case
II, all variables are varied to get the optimized results.
Table 7.6 Optimum results for Constant Module for 45C8 (Case I)
Table 7.7 Optimum results for Constant Module for Alloy Steel (Case I)
In this case, module is kept constant. Power, gear thickness and number of
teeth are varied. From the obtained optimum results, it is found that the number of
gear teeth values does not vary much from one solution to another. Since Alloy
steel has higher stress values when compared to 45C8. By changing the gear
material from 45C8 to Alloy steel, provides more room to reduce the gear
thickness and number of teeth. This solution provides a wide difference when
compared with the existing trial design method.
Gear
Design Module Power Volume
No. of Teeth Thickness
3
Tool (mm) (kW) (mm )
(mm)
Gear
Design Module Power Volume
No. of Teeth Thickness 3
Tool (mm) (kW) (mm )
(mm)
Z =18 Z2=51 b1,2 = 50
Existing 1
design 5 10 5743219
Method Z3=18 Z4=51 b3,4 = 50
In this case, no variable are kept constant. Power, module, gear thickness
and number of teeth are varied. From the Table 7.8 and 7.9, it is observed that the
number of teeth does not vary much from one solution to another. When compared
with the trial method, SFHM shows further reduction in the module and the
number of teeth with a slight increase in the power transmission. Also, when
compared with Case I, Case II does not show a noticeable variation in the gear
thickness because of gear module reduction.
From the above results, by considering the volume and power for the SFHM
for case I and case II, it is observed that for a required range of power SFHM gives
lesser range of volume when compared with trial design method in this model also.
So it is understood that SFHM is suited for this model also and it gives better
results.
7.4 SUMMARY
In this work, the design optimization of a two speed gearbox and with
different type gear materials has been done. The obtained optimal results are
tabulated. The results and discussion about this research work has been given in
the next chapter.