Analysis and control of gearbox whine of a heavy commercial vehicle based on planet phasing theory and bench test

Abstract

The whine noise of the vehicle gearbox has an important impact on the passing noise and the noise, vibration, and harshness (NVH) of the whole vehicle. It is of great significance to analyzing and controlling the whine problem. Firstly, according to the distribution characteristic of the force acting on the sun in the planetary gear system, the force and torque acting on the sun are calculated, and on this basis, the planet phasing theory is derived with planets equally spaced. Then, the vibration and noise bench test is conducted on a heavy commercial vehicle gearbox equipped with planetary gear mechanism. The vibration and noise colormaps in the shell and near-field of the auxiliary gearbox are obtained. By analyzing the test results and calculating the meshing orders of the main and auxiliary gearbox, the correctness of planet phasing theory is verified. Finally, based on source-transfer path-receiver model, the control methods of gearbox whine problem are proposed from the perspective of reducing excitation and optimizing transfer path. As for the excitation source control, the micro modification scheme of tooth surface is obtained by using orthogonal experiments, response surface method, and optimization algorithm to minimize the peak-to-peak value of static transmission error and mesh stiffness. As for the transfer path control, the axial clearance between sun and carrier is appropriately increased. The effectiveness of both methods is verified through bench test, and the results show that the proposed methods can significantly improve the whine problem of the gearbox. The paper is of great value to enrich the application of planet phasing theory in the gearbox whine noise control of heavy commercial vehicle.