Vibration signal modeling of a planetary gear set with transmission path effect analysis

For a planetary gear set, the transducer-perceived vibration signal contains vibration information from multiple sources including the sun gear, planet gears, and the ring gear. All these vibration sources are subject to corresponding transmission path effects. In this paper, a comprehensive vibration signal model for a planetary gear set is proposed considering all the vibration sources and transmission path effects. Vibration sources were generated with a nonlinear two-dimensional lumped-parameter dynamic model. Transmission path effects are modeled as two parts: the part inside the gearbox to the casing and the other part along the casing to the transducer position. Given the gear sizes, the transmission path effect modeling parameters are estimated. Then the influences of different transmission paths on resultant vibration signals are analyzed. Some vibration characteristics are revealed for one healthy planetary gear set. These vibration characteristics are validated with lab experimental data in both time domain and frequency domain.