Simulation of Thermal Elastohydrodynamic Lubricated (TEHL) Gear Contacts

T. Lohner [1], A. Ziegltrum [1], K. Stahl [1],
[1] Gear Research Centre (FZG), Technical University of Munich (TUM), Garching, Germany
Published in 2016

Thermal elastohydrodynamic lubricated (TEHL) contacts occur very frequently in drive technology and thus in gear drives. In this presentation, the implementation of a finite element based TEHL simulation approach for gear contacts in COMSOL Multiphysics® software is shown. The physically based simulation approach used is different to most of the existing TEHL simulations and is required to understand the friction and damage behavior of gears in more detail. Due to elastic deformation of the rolling elements induced by hydrodynamic pressure, the simulation of TEHL contacts requires the coupling of the areas of fluid dynamics and contact mechanics. The calculation is based on two setups of finite element models using an iterative procedure between them, which is achieved by using MATLAB® and the LiveLink™ for MATLAB®.