Maize harvester gearbox design modification for improved fatigue life

The gearbox has the advantage of being able to change the torque and rotational speed according to the gear ratio and has high power transmission efficiency by transmitting power through the contact of the gear pair. When evaluating the strength and fatigue life of a gearbox using a design load or an equivalent load, there is a possibility that the results will be very different from the actual ones. Therefore, in this study, the load duration distribution (LDD) constructed based on the actual workload was used to evaluate the strength and fatigue life of the gearbox reliably. As a result of evaluating the strength and fatigue life of the gearbox using LDD, it was confirmed that the existing gearbox did not satisfy the target lifespan in the operating environment. Therefore, the reasons for these results were analyzed, and design modification was performed based on the analyzed results. As a result of design modification, shaft deflection decreased by rearrangement of the bearings, from an overhung type to a straddle type, thereby improving the fatigue life of gears and bearings. Finally, the load distribution acting on the gear tooth surface was improved through micro-geometry modification of the gears.