The effect of pressure angle on the wear behavior of asymmetric gears

Abstract

The asymmetric gear design incorporates an enlarged drive side pressure angle in the involute profile to effectively mitigate contact pressure during gear meshing, whereas the coast side profile adopts a reduced pressure angle configuration to minimize potential failure risks. However, the wear behavior of asymmetric gears has not been thoroughly explored. In this study, the finite element (FE) wear models for asymmetric gears based on Archard wear theory and a UMESHMOTION subroutine based on commercial software ABAQUS were utilized to investigate the wear behavior of asymmetric gears. The adaptive mesh technique was applied during the simulation. The results indicate that, as the drive side pressure angle increases, both the von Mises stress and contact pressure decrease. In addition, the increased pressure angle leads to a reduction in the tooth surface slip distance and an expansion of the gear contact area, which results in a decrease in the gear surface wear rate. When the pressure angle increases from 18° to 24°, the maximum wear rate exhibits a substantial reduction from 1.66 × 10⁻⁶ mm/cycle to 0.80 × 10⁻⁶ mm/cycle, representing a 51.8% decrease in wear rate magnitude.