Development of method for early fault detection in small planetary gear sets in nutrunners

Abstract: The objective of this thesis work was to develop a method to detect early damage on small planetary gear sets that are installed in Atlas Copco nutrunners. The project has gone through several stages of product development, from idea to working product and signal analysis. Currently, Atlas Copco have a test rig for testing these planetary gears, this rig has been proven to be insufficient at detecting faults during an ongoing test. A new tailored test rig was therefore designed and manufactured. Low noise and low amount of vibration was of interest when designing the rig. Four concepts was thought of and evaluated through simulations using Matlab and Simulink. Most of the components of the rig were manufactured in the workshop at Atlas Copco in Nacka. Methods fo rmeasuring torsional, transverse and acoustic vibration was implemented and analyzed. There are many different parameters considering fault of fixed shaft gears. However, these are not easily applicable on a planetary gear because of the nature of its design. Therefore, special techniques are required. Two “new” parameters were tested (NSDS,FRMS [Lei. et al.]) with positive results. Pitting of individual gear members could befound.