Gears
Gears are the mechanical components to transmit power from one shaft to another. They are also used to increase or decrease the output speed (transmitted torque) of the shafts. In general, on a single rotor, bending and torsional motion of the rotor are uncoupled. However, when gears are used to connect the rotors, bending and torsional motions of the rotor get coupled due to the gear meshing, thus significantly changing the response of the rotor. Three types of gears — spur, helical, and bevel — are provided in the Solid Rotor interface to support the modeling of systems of several rotors connected through gears.
A gear is defined as a rigid body. A finite stiffness for the gear mesh (or gear tooth) can be specified in the Gear Pair node while connecting to other gears. Similar to a rigid domain, the gears are a material model, which is mutually exclusive to all other material models. The only material property needed is the mass density.
Gears automatically get mounted on an adjacent flexible shaft. To attach a gear to a rigid shaft, the shaft itself can be selected in the Gear node.
The axis of the gear is the same as that of the rotor on which it is mounted.
For details about the theory of gears, see Gear Theory.