Contact Pattern Analysis: Simulation of a Laser-Assisted Thermographic Approach

The contact pattern, defined as the area where gear teeth come into contact during their meshing, is a crucial quality feature of gears. If the size and location of the contact pattern are wrong, the gear meshing properties can be significantly affected (e.g., lifetime, noise). Despite several disadvantages, the so-called “paste method” is established as a method to analyse contact patterns. Here, a new measuring approach is examined using the Finite Elements Method (FEM). It is based on the heating-up of one tooth flank with a powerful laser, a subsequent partial transfer of the heat to a meshing tooth of the second gear wheel and finally capturing the heat distribution on that flank as an infrared image shortly afterwards. The thermal image should correspond to the contact pattern of that individual combination of teeth. A numerical analysis shows that at medium- and large-sized gears the achievable temperature increase will be high enough to be detected with modern infrared cameras.