Simulation of the Churning Losses of Ordinary Gears: Lagrangian Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics Approach

With the increasing power density of the geared transmissions and the demand of more and more reliable systems, lubrication is becoming a main concern. Optimizing the lubricant supply implies not only a reduction of the power losses and increase of the system efficiency, but also a decrease of the operating temperatures and higher reliability. This paper aims at presenting a mesh-less Lagrangian approach for the simulation of the churning of a spur gear pair. The numerical results have been validated via experimental measurements on a back-to-back test rig under different operating conditions. The models have been implemented in the open-source environment DualSPHysics. The results have been compared to experimental data as well as numerical results obtained with mesh-based approaches with the aim of assessing the accuracy of the new method.