TEMPERATURE MODELLING OF GEAR MESH

Abstract: Temperature control is an essential aspect of gear design. Continuous research is going on to improve the efficiency of gear systems. Power losses or energy losses in these systems typically manifest themselves as increased temperatures and thus reducing the lifetime and overall performance of the system. Siemens Energy gas turbines produce powers of up to 63 Megawatts and as a result requires a gearbox which can transmit such high powers. A double helical parallel shaft gearbox is mostly used for this purpose. With sufficient cooling methods and by reducing the losses in the gearboxes even by a minute percent, can increase the efficiency of gearbox which in turn will increase the efficiency of the whole powerplant. This will make the consumer even more profitable in the long run. A mathematical power loss model for the double helical gears in mesh was developed in MATLAB. This was followed by a finite element steady state thermal analysis in ANSYS. The boundary conditions and the results of the analysis are discussed and a few design changes to reduce the gear losses are suggested.