SIMULATION OF FAILURE IN GEARBOX USING MSC.ADAMS.

Vehicle's gearbox is regarded as one of the most crucial elements in a vehicle but it sustains a variety of faults such as a broken tooth, misalignment, imbalance, looseness, and even a broken case. Using accelerometers, which are mounted on the case to measure a vibration signal, we can detect faults and monitor the condition but the signals are often complicated and difficult to interpret. Moreover, it is costly and almost impossible to change the structure of a gearbox in order to survey, for instance, the dependence of a vibration signal on the structure, or types of a fault. In this paper a dynamic model of gearbox was developed with tooth breakage to study the capability of simulation using MSC.Adams software. In this simulation we focus on the gearbox used in a common military vehicle. The simulation was based on a nonlinear contact force to predict what happens to the gearbox in case the tooth breaks. The contact mechanics model of the meshing teeth is studied thoroughly by selecting contact simulation parameters such as stiffness, force exponent, damping and friction coefficients. To simulate the real working environment of the gearbox, simulated bearings were also built in the MSC. Adams. The paper shows that it is possible to simulate vibration signals by the gearbox model created in 3D CAD software and analyze the results in the multi-body dynamics software MSC.Adams. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]