NASA NTRS1991
As part of a program to study fundamental mechanisms of gear noise, static and dynamic gear tooth strain measurements were made on the NASA gear-noise rig. Tooth-fillet strains from low-contact ratio-spur gears were recorded for 28 operating conditions. A method is introduced whereby strain gage measurements taken from both the tension and compression sides of a gear tooth can be transformed into the normal and frictional loads on the tooth. This technique was applied to both the static and dynamic strain data. The static case results showed close agreement with expected results. For the dynamic case, the normal-force computation produced very good results, but the friction results, although promising, were not as accurate. Tooth sliding friction strongly affected the signal from the strain gage on the tensionside of the tooth. The compression gage was affected by friction to a much lesser degree. The potential of the method to measure friction force was demonstrated, but further refinement will be required before this technique can be used to measure friction forces dynamically with an acceptable degree of accuracy.