Analysis on Lubrication Behavior of Hypoid Gears Under Starved Condition

In engineering practice, the starvation may occur due to insufficient supply of lubricant in hypoid gears. Therefore, a starved elastohydrodynamic lubrication model for hypoid gears was developed with the consideration of contact geometry, surface roughness, inlet oil layer thickness, and arbitrary entrainment velocity vector of interface. Model validation was executed by means of comparison between the obtained numerical results and the available starved EHL data found from some previous studies. A comprehensive analysis for the effect of inlet oil supply condition on film thickness at engaging-in, engaging-out and pitch point was conducted in a wide range of operating conditions. In addition, the influence of speed on lubrication performance under different inlet oil supply condition was obtained. The results showed that the comparison between numerical and experimental results demonstrates a good agreement. It was indicated that the difference of film thickness among the three meshing point are getting smaller when the amount of lubricant in the inlet decreased. If the inlet oil layer thickness is reduced down to a certain value, the film thickness of the three meshing points would be the same. Besides, the speed has significant effect on the lubrication behavior. The film thickness gradually increases with the increase of the speed, if the speed keeps getting greater, the film thickness would remain constant under starved condition while the film thickness would keep rising under fully flooded condition. © 2019, Editorial Department of Advanced Engineering Sciences. All right reserved.