A Finite Element Methodology for the Fatigue Analysis of High-Performance Electric Motor Gears

The growing demand for high-performance electric motors challenges gearbox design, particularly regarding fatigue life. This study presents a Finite Element methodology for analyzing the structural behavior of a high-performance electric motor gearbox. A detailed simulation of gear mesh operation was conducted, focusing on the contact history of a single tooth. Through a sensitivity analysis, it was determined the number of teeth to be included in the computational domain. Non-essential sections of the gear were simplified as cylindrical surfaces. The discretization strategy emphasized precision in critical areas related to the safety factor while reducing complexity in less relevant regions to optimize computational efficiency. Multiple modeling approaches were evaluated, including the impact of shafts, bearings, and reaction forces from adjacent gears. The final simulation incorporated microgeometry effects. Simulations were carried out excluding thermal effects and giving a special attention to defining appropriate boundary and initial conditions. Once the model representing the best compromise between results accuracy and computational time has been developed, a complete gear meshing fatigue analysis was performed using the multiaxial Dang Van method, providing a comprehensive framework for predicting gearbox performance under high-cycle fatigue.