BACKLASH DETECTION IN GEARED MECHANISMS - MODELING, SIMULATION, AND EXPERIMENTATION

Backlash is a common fault that occurs in geared mechanisms, and can p roduce inaccuracy or uncontrollability of the mechanism. It is shown t hat, by modeling backlash as a microscopic impact, its presence can be detected and possibly measured using only simple sensors. The first s tage of modeling establishes the need for the use of non-linear elasti c and damping forces in calculating the gear teeth reaction force. The second stage of modeling uses a detailed digital multibody simulation to develop and test the effectiveness of the proposed detection appro ach. Experiments verify the efficacy of the methodology in practice. F inally, the results can be quantified for a test-bed mechanism, indica ting that this methodology may be useful for condition monitoring of i ndustrial mechanisms. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.