Abstract
This study examines oil jet lubrication of an engine spiral bevel gear set using numerical simulation, analytical modelling, and experiments. A 3D Moving Particle Semi-implicit (MPS) model is built in shonDy software to describe the transient jet and free surface flow around the rotating gears. The numerical results are coupled with analytical expressions for frictional heat generation, elastic fluid dynamic film thickness, and convective heat transfer. This combined model yields the oil coverage on the tooth surfaces, the pressure distribution, and the local heat transfer coefficient. An orthogonal experiment is carried out on a dedicated test rig to measure torque loss and to validate the trends obtained from the simulations. The influence of injection distance, injection angle, nozzle diameter, and gear speed is studied. The results show that nozzle diameter and gear speed have the strongest effect on oil coverage, heat transfer, and torque loss. The injection angle mainly changes the distribution of oil and temperature, while the injection distance has a limited effect within the tested range. The integrated numerical and analytical approach, supported by experiments, provides a practical tool for the design and optimization of jet lubrication for spiral bevel gears. It is suitable for high-speed gearboxes.
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