Oil splashing, Lubrication and Churning losses prediction by moving Particle Simulation

Abstract

Lubrication, churning losses and heat dissipation are fundamental aspects in the design of gear boxes and transmission systems. These three aspects affect the functionality, life and efficiency of the device, but, in spite of their importance, the use of simulation to study these phenomena and support the design of transmission systems is very limited.
The reason is that traditional mesh-based CFD methods can handle simulation of gear boxes and similar systems only with complex meshing methods and with long transient simulations, that do not fit in the design process.

This paper shows how particle based methods like the Moving Particle Simulation (MPS) can simulate lubrication and oil splashing by completely eliminating mesh generation from the CFD process and by drastically reducing the simulation time, thanks to the semiimplicit scheme used by MPS for time integration. In particular the article shows the results of the MPS method on a two speed reduction gear box, that is part of the rotor drive transmission change for a forage harvester machine. The gearbox has to work in a very wide range of rotational speed and torque and a good lubrication for all rotating components is mandatory to avoid failures and overheating issues.

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