A comparison between gear mesh stiffness calculation methods and their sensitivity for lightweight gears

The present work deals with the analysis of the criticalities connected to the calculation of the mesh stiffness for spur gears. In particular, the proposed dissertation compares the most famous methods for the mesh stiffness calculation, found in the literature, focusing the attention on their accuracy for the lightweight gear case. Specifically, five methods have been investigated, one based on an analytical approach, two based on finite element (FE) methods and two hybrid analytical-FE methods. Moreover, an hybrid linear FE non-linear FE method has been proposed. The sensitivity of the illustrated methods on the mesh stiffness in the analysis case of lightweight gears is investigated and presented. Pros and cons about the analysed approaches have been assessed, in terms of accuracy of the results and computational time. Furthermore, the paper presents different focuses on untreated topics found in the references.