Early damage detection in planetary gear transmission in different operating conditions

Abstract

Planetary gear transmissions are sensitive to various running environmental factors. These external conditions keep these systems often subjected to faults and/or malfunction especially in gears components. So, it is a crucial task to spot in advance all kind of degradation that could lead to a harmful event or accident to the system. In the same context, this study aims to investigate the case of combined faults detection and analyse their impact on the vibration dynamic response in a two stages planetary gear transmission in diverse operating conditions. For this, a Lumped Mass Model (LMM), referred to a real test rig where experimental tests, is established. In this model, the Time Varying Mesh Stiffness (TVMS) were modelled in different frameworks and configurations such as the healthy, the single and the combined damage conditions. After acquiring acceleration signals from the model, time, frequency and order analysis data processing were executed to generate health related data for the planetary gear. Consequently, it is concluded that the system vibration response is sensitive to the internal excitation particularly the case of combined defects. The obtained results show the ability of the developed model to identify the frequency characteristics of defect and the transmission in each configuration. The experimental and simulated results are compared and correlated.