On the Influence of Housing Stiffness on Bearings Life for Manual Automotive Transmissions through Coupled Simulations 2011-36-0151

One of the vital parts in the modern motor vehicle is the transmission. Any fault on the system can hazard the usage of the vehicle, especially if the fault occurs during the operation, in that case safety will be an issue. Thus, in order to improve reliability and durability of transmissions systems and its components, virtual simulations can help the designer to overcome faulty conditions during the design conception. However, many times the simulations do not relate to the real world application, due to simplification and assumptions that were formally known as appropriate. For that reason, during the process of designing a transmission bearing, it would be important to take into account the housing stiffness effects on the bearings. In this work, three different cases will be evaluated. In first case, bearings life will be simulated on an analytical software with a rigid housing. Second, bearings will be simulated with a flexible housing and, finally, a simulation with a reinforced housing will be made. Hence, the effects of the housing can be seen on the bearing life and load conditions.