Splash lubrication for an orthogonal face gear using numerical investigation integrating image processing

Abstract

With practical physical immersion depth as their joint, the relations between the oil distribution characteristics and the associated no-load power losses for splash-lubricated orthogonal face gears are explored and quantified in this paper. Firstly, a theoretical analytical model is proposed to estimate the churning losses of an isolated face gear considering all the preceding parameters, along with a numerical model of a face gear stirring oil developed based on the sliding mesh strategy. Then the accuracy and correctness of the computational fluid dynamics method are verified with experiments in terms of oil flow behavior and no-load losses. Finally, the physical immersion depth is determined by leveraging the image processing technique and substituted into the theoretical model replacing the static depth with an improvement of prediction accuracy. Last but not least, this practical immersion depth acts as a link to facilitate the communication between the oil distributions and the no-load power losses within the gearboxes.