The influence of bearing stiffness on the vibration properties of statically overdetermined gearboxes

In the design process of every modern car, the appropriate acoustic behaviour of each integral part is of great importance. This is particularly so for gearboxes. The stiffness of a rolling-element bearing is one of the main contributors to the transmission of vibrations from the interior of the gearbox to the housing. Many methods have been proposed to determine the bearing stiffness; this stiffness is related to the load in a nonlinear way. In this article, a new method for defining the proper bearing stiffness of statically overdetermined gearboxes is proposed. To achieve this an iterative process is conducted, with an initial guess for the loads on the bearings, which provides the initial values for their stiffnesses. The calculated stiffnesses are then inserted into a finite element method (FEM) model of a gearbox, where the new load vectors on the bearings are calculated. The described process runs until the convergence of the loads on the bearings is reached. Afterwards, the frequency-response functions (FRFs) are numerically calculated. As a reference point for our calculations, the measured FRFs are obtained. The measurements were performed on a simple, but statically overdetermined, gearbox with the option for moment adjustments between the two shafts. The calculated results in the form of FRFs are compared with the measurements.