Continuous damage-based Voronoi finite element analysis of contact fatigue of a wind turbine gear

Abstract

Contact fatigue failures of gears, especially those used in heavy duty conditions such as wind turbine gears, become important issues in mechanical transmission industry. In the present work, a continuous damage mechanism and Voronoi-based finite element model is developed to investigate the contact fatigue of a wind turbine gear. Plane strain assumption is adopted to simplify the gear contact model. Voronoi tessellations are utilized to represent the microstructure topology of the gear material, and continuous damage mechanism is implemented to reflect the material degradation within critical substrate area. With the developed framework, the contact pressure distribution, intergranular mechanical response and the progressive fatigue damage at the grain boundaries during repeated gear meshing are evaluated and discussed in detail. The depths of the maximum shear stress reversal and the crack initiation agree well with previously reported findings. The influence of microstructure on the gear contact fatigue behavior is also investigated.