Mitigation of Gear Mesh-Frequency Noise Using a Hydrostatic Bearing

Abstract

A proposed solution to reducing gear mesh-frequency vibrations in a gear-set involves the utilization of hydrostatic bearings placed in series, load wise, with the main support bearing. The hydrostatic bearings are expected to utilize its low pass filtering effect of the vibrational energies to prevent its transmission from the shaft to the gear housing where it would be emitted as noise. The present investigation examines the frequency response of a single-recess circular hydrostatic bearing under applied sinusoidal loads. The results show that as the driving frequency increases, the filtering effect of the hydrostatic bearing increases. The exhibited behavior is similar to the behavior of a low pass filter: negligible filtering effect at low frequencies, the filtering effect increasing from 0% to 90% over the midfrequencies range and the filtering effect remaining at the maximum value as the frequencies of the applied signals continue to increase. This observed behavior is expected to play a central role in the proposed gear mesh-frequency vibration mitigation system.