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Oil film deposition characteristics and judgment of lubrication effect of splash lubricated gears

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Abstract

To study the oil film deposition characteristics of splash lubricated gears and determine whether their meshing area is completely lubricated, this study proposes the concept of judging the splash lubrication-deposition characteristics-inlet oil film thickness-lubrication effect. The critical oil film thickness that characterizes the full lubrication of the gear meshing area was obtained as 14.5428 µm by using elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) theory. Based on computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method, based on the renormalization group (RNG) k-ε two-equation turbulence model, dynamic mesh model and volume of fluid (VOF) model, the numerical calculation of the intermediate gearbox in splash lubrication is carried out. The oil film deposition thickness of the gear tooth that was about to enter the meshing area was calculated to be 95.6207 µm. It was found that the meshing area is fully lubricated under the rated operating conditions.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by National Natural Science Foundation of China (52075241) and National Science and Technology Major Project (J2019-IV-0001-0068).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Key Laboratory of Science and Technology on Helicopter Transmission, Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Nanjing, 210016, China

    Fengxia Lu, Kun Wei, Meng Wang, Mou Li & Heyun Bao

Authors
  1. Fengxia Lu
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  2. Kun Wei
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  3. Meng Wang
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  4. Mou Li
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  5. Heyun Bao
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fengxia Lu.

Additional information

Fengxia Lu is a Doctor at the College of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics in Nanjing, China. She obtained her Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Her research interests include mechanical transmission, lubrication systems, and heat transfer.

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Lu, F., Wei, K., Wang, M. et al. Oil film deposition characteristics and judgment of lubrication effect of splash lubricated gears. J Mech Sci Technol 37, 2383–2393 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-023-0415-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12206-023-0415-8

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