Research on Dynamic Transmission Error Measurement of Heavy-Duty Gearbox Based on Optical Measurement Method

Under high-load operating conditions, the deformation of individual gearbox components emerges as the primary factor contributing to transmission errors. To further investigate how variations in meshing stiffness influence the dynamic performance of heavy-load gearboxes this study focuses on a specific gear pair within the gearbox. By integrating theoretical modeling with optical experimental measurements, the research systematically analyzes patterns of transmission errors across various load and speed scenarios. Assuming that gear error is a constant value, a transmission error model induced by time-varying meshing stiffness was developed. Digital image correlation technology was employed for simulation validation. A comparison between the theoretical transmission error and actual measured data revealed that under low-load conditions, the correlation coefficient between nearly constant simulated errors and measured errors is less than0.5. As load increases, both simulated and measured errors rise significantly, resulting in a correlation coefficient exceeding 0.85. Under low-speed operating conditions, transmission error remains largely stable; however under high-speed rotational conditions, both simulation results and measured data exhibit significant high-frequency fluctuations particularly at resonance peaks. This clearly demonstrates the critical influence of dynamic terms on model accuracy. By analyzing curve offsets, we further quantified the proportion of gear errors: specifically, under low-load conditions gear error accounted for approximately 80%, whereas under high-load conditions nonlinear factors related to meshing stiffness constituted up to 70%.