Contact Stress Analysis of a Helical Gear

The main factors that cause the failure of gears are the bending stress and contact stress of the gear tooth. Out of these, failure of gears due to contact stress is high compared to bending stress. Stress analysis has been a key area of research to minimize failure and optimize design. This paper gives a finite element model for introspection of the stresses in the tooth during the meshing of gears. Specifically, helix angle is important for helical gears. Using modeling software, 3-D models for different helix angles in helical gears were generated, and the simulation was performed using ANSYS 12.0 to estimate the contact stress. The Hertz equation and AGMA standard was used to calculate the contact stress. The results of the theoretical contact stress values, using Hertz and AGMA are compared with the stress values from the FEA for different helix angles and the results are tabulated and discussed.