An approximate method to predict surface wear of hypoid gears using surface interpolation

•It proposes an approximate computation methodology for hypoid gear surface wear.•The aim is to significantly reduce the computational time of wear prediction.•The results were compared and matched well with previous developed accurate method.

In this paper, an approximate and fast wear computation methodology is proposed for predicting tooth surface wear of hypoid gears. This methodology combines loaded tooth contact results from a semi-analytical hypoid gear contact model with Archard's wear model. In order to reduce the computational time required compared to previous hypoid wear models, (i) a patching technique that reduces the rotational span of the analysis to a single mesh cycle from a complete loading cycle is implemented, (ii) a surface interpolation technique is employed to surface-fit wear depths at a coarser rotational increment to an approximate wear distribution, and (iii) a sliding distance computation based on the contact velocities is devised rather than a coordinates-based methods. Differential geometry formulations based on surface normal curvatures and their directions are used to determine surface velocities and contact line directions. The results of this approximate model are compared to those from a previous model using the same semi-definite tooth contact model to demonstrate its accuracy, especially at lower torque values, as well as its computational efficiency.