Applications potentialities
The first one, probably the most relevant, is the definition of an entirely new integrated methodology to design and simulate meshing gears and transmission systems. The methodology will be reliable, accurate and computationally efficient, and will include the most relevant aspects to take into account the kinematic, the dynamic, the efficiency, the vibration and the noise. This integrated design environment will be the base for developing specific methodologies for facing a large variety of practical problems efficiently. Optimization studies can also benefit from the proposed methodology due to the ability to include parameters and functions. Due to the affordable computational cost, the methodology can be applied in studies involving a couple of meshing gears such as gearboxes and long transmission chains. Gearing systems are present in different industrial fields such as automotive, aerospace, medical devices, marine, consumer products, and energy facilities just to mention the most relevant ones. All these fields may benefit from potential applications of the proposed methodology.
Impact
The scientific step forward from the state of the art will be how the simulation models will tackle challenges such as transients, gear shifts, non-linear dynamics phenomena, noise, and backlash in a single environment. The proposed methodology has the potential to become a new standard in the design of gearing systems due to its expected reliability and computational efficiency. Other design methodologies will benefit from the integration of the proposed models to tackle complex phenomena and entire transmission chains. Moreover, the development of a precise and lean predictive tool to design teeth profiles for gears represents a technological advancement that will find useful applications in many sectors, allowing designers to quickly obtain a tangible and exploitable benefit within the system design.