An Analytical Study of Bifurcation and Chaos in a Spur Gear Pair with Sliding Friction

The mechanism of gear meshing entails a large amount of sliding friction between the mating teeth in contact. Friction force on the tooth face induces non-linearity in gear dynamics. In order to explain the complex non-linear phenomena in a gear pair associated with frictional force on tooth face, backlash and time-varying gear meshing stiffness, a numerical simulation was used here. Using this analysis, the physical phenomena associated with the friction and non-friction gear system are compared and the essential differences in the system behavior are examined. Finally, bifurcation, chaos and their corresponding largest Lyapunov exponents of gear system with sliding friction are investigated and the critical parameters are identified.