Identification of gear errors by vibrations of a spur gearpair

A new method of identifying modal parameters (natural frequency and damping) and the equivalent gear error of a spur gear pair is developed. The equivalent error is a function of the gear position and is related to the errors of the driving and the driven gears and to the non-dimensional stiffness of the teeth. The method is based on the measurement of the gear torsional vibrations. The test bench is modelled as a single degree of freedom system and must be assembled by using stiff bearings and torsionally compliant shafts.