An Analytical Expression for the Time-Varying Contact Length in Perfect Cylindrical Gears: Some Possible Applications in Gear Dynamics

This paper presents an analytical expression of the time-varying contact length between perfect involute spur and helical gears. It is shown that contact lengths can be expressed as Fourier series whose numerical expansions correlate very well with the results of numerical time-step simulations based on contact length discretization. Finally, some possible examples of application in gear dynamics are suggested.