International Journal of Automotive Technology, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp.

59−66 (2011) Copyright © 2011 KSAE

DOI 10.1007/s12239−011−0008−x 1229−9138/2011/056−08

DEFLECTION TEST AND TRANSMISSION ERROR MEASUREMENT

TO IDENTIFY HYPOID GEAR WHINE NOISE
J. H. YOON , B. J. CHOI , I. H. YANG and J. E. OH
1) 1) 1) 2)*

Graduate School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea

1)

School of Mechanical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul 133-791, Korea

2)

(Received 5 March 2009; Revised 13 September 2010)

ABSTRACT−Hypoid gears are commonly used in rear-drive and 4WD (4 Wheel Drive) vehicle axles. Investigating their
sensitivity to deflections is one of the most important aspects of their design and optimization procedures. Therefore, a
deflection test was performed in this study in the actual gear mounting using completely processed gear. This test covered the
full operating range of gear loads from “no load” to “peak load”. Under peak load, the contact pattern extended to the tooth
boundaries without showing a concentration of the contact pattern at any point on the tooth surface. The transmission error
was tested under an axle assembly triaxial-real-car-load condition.
KEY WORDS : Hypoid gear, Deflection test, Transmission error, Gear whine noise, Axle

1. INTRODUCTION Kolivand et al., 2006), but the development of the tooth

geometry through the application of such theories is
The axle in vehicle driving systems was used primarily in insufficient. Therefore, in this study, the causes of hypoid
small trucks, special vehicles, or buses, when FF (Front- gear whine noise were identified by measuring the
engine Front-drive) vehicles were popular. However, as the transmission errors under load variation and by developing
FR (Front-engine Rear-drive), 4WD (4 Wheel Drive), or experimental methods to measure the triaxle transmission
AWD (All Wheel Drive) type driving systems have been errors. The results of the deflection test with the tooth
adopted in RV and SUV vehicles, which have gradually geometry development of the hypoid gears that were used
become more common since 2000, and in middle-sized or in the axles were then compared with the interpretation
large luxury vehicles, the performance of the axle has results and tests that were conducted using Gleason's T900
constantly improved. As such, the importance and role of (www.gleason.com).
the axle continues to increase. In fact, in vehicles with
improved performance, the overall indoor noise was also 2. DEFLECTION TEST
greatly reduced due to the use of low-noise technology,
unlike in existing diesel vehicles (Lee et al., 2007; Park et 2.1. Introduction
al., 2008; Sim et al., 2006). However, the gear noise in the To design axles, the deflection of the driving and the driven
transmission and axle, which had been masked, is increas- gears and the tooth contact pattern under the torque were
ing and has become a significant challenge. To develop a measured. Figure 1 shows a picture of the experiment in
low-noise axle, the transmission error due to the input which the deflection was measured. The tooth contact
torque variation in hypoid gear must be measured; in
particular, the engineers who modify the teeth to develop
low-noise axles need the transmission errors of the gears in
direct relation to the tooth geometry. There has been no
report, however, of studies in Korea that aim to measure the
transmission errors in axles. In Japan, case studies on trans-
mission error measurements (Kato, 2003) were reported,
but the measurement precision was imperfect. The current
method of measuring torque variation is presently under
examination. There have also been theories about and ex-
perimental evaluation of deflection (Coleman, 1975;

*Corresponding author. e-mail: jeoh@hanyang.ac.kr Figure 1. Deflection measurement check.

59
60 J. H. YOON, B. J. CHOI, I. H. YANG and J. E. OH
Figure 2. Tooth contact check.
pattern was measured by applying an appropriate volume
of a gear-marking compound to the gears before the two
sets of gear teeth were engaged with each other to turn and
by copying the imprint on the gears with tape after turning.
The tooth contact pattern was then checked. Figure 2
shows the measured tooth contact pattern.
2.2. Positions of the Deflection Measurement and the Axle
Noise Section of Input Torque Conditions on the Vehicle
The Hypoid gear rotation direction and torque direction are
shown in Figure 3. The measurement position in the direc-
tion test is shown in Figure 4, and the axes (E, P, G, and α)
of the hypoid gears are shown in Figure13. Except for the
upper/lower and right/left torsions of the pinion and ring
gears and the displacement, the real deflections were mea-
sured with a trigonometric function (Coleman, 1975). This
test result also included tooth deflection. Moreover, each
displacement sensor was fixed and measured based on the
inner bearing assembly of the pinion gear. Because the
Figure 3. Hypoid gear rotation direction and torque direction.
Figure 4. Displacement indicator measuring point and
indicator anchorage point.
Figure 5. Measurement setup of the axle input for the
vehicle torque.
input revolution in the direction test was 5~10 rpm and
because oil was not used, the test was performed with the
low revolution to prevent the teeth from being damaged by
the heat generated in the surface of the gear under the
torque condition.
The noise section and the actual input torque that were
measured under various driving conditions (W.O.T.: Wide
Open Throttle; S.W.O.T.: Semi-Wide Open Throttle;
Coast: Full Close Throttle Deceleration).
Figure 5 shows a diagram of a device that measures the
input torque in the axles of vehicles. Figure 6 is a graph that
shows the input torque measurement for S.W.O.T. and
coast driving conditions. Table 1 shows the noise section of
the input torque values under coast driving conditions. It
can be seen that the input torque in the gear whine noise
section is between −22.5 and −7.2 kg·m in real vehicles. To
Figure 6. Axle input torque of S.W.O.T. (semi-wide open
throttle) and coast test modes.
 DEFLECTION TEST AND TRANSMISSION ERROR MEASUREMENT TO IDENTIFY HYPOID GEAR 61

Table 1. Axle input torque by test mode.

Noise section 80~90 kph 95~110 kph 120~130 kph
S.W.O.T. 21.4 27.6 22.3
Coast −7.2 −12.5 −22.5
Unit (kg·m)

develop the tooth geometry with minimum transmission

error under these input torque conditions, the transmission
error under such input torque must be measured.
3. TRANSMISSION ERROR
3.1. Transmission Error Measurement
The general way to measure the transmission error of
the hypoid gear in axles and of the helical gear in the
transmission gear is to conduct the single flank test
(www.gleason.com). In this test, Gleason’s 600HTT equip-
ment is used to measure the transmission error of the gear
pair. The experimental equipment is shown in Figure 7.
This equipment has the following limitation: its use in the
single-flank test requires that the test be performed under a
low input torque/revolution speed (20 N·m/60 rpm). It can,
however, check the quality of the manufactured gear pair
very effectively at the manufacturing site.
Figure 8 shows how the results of the experiment were
analyzed. If the pinion to be measured revolves while
engaged with the gears, the rotational angular velocity of
each gear should be measured using a rotation angle meter
whose resolution power is at least 30 times the number of
gear teeth. After calculating the long and short waves
separately according to the numbers of the pinion and gear
teeth (Figure 22), the transmission error of the average
tooth mesh is computed to derive the resultant value. In
addition, the transmission error for each gear order can be
identified by calculating each spectrum for each set of time
data through the FFT process.
3.2. Triaxial Transmission Error Measure
The single flank test discussed in Section 3.1 was conduct-
Figure 8. Transmission error measurement system: Gleason
single-flank tester (www.gleason.com).
ed to evaluate the biaxial transmission error of the two
gears. This test is inappropriate to determine the cause
analysis of hypoid gear whine noise for the following
reasons. First, the torque condition is low, and the de-
flection under the torque is not applied due to the structural
limitations of the equipment. In fact, it is impossible to
evaluate the transmission error under high torque because
the equipment being tested is fixed to each axis by fric-
tional jigs, not by bolts. Second, it is impossible to identify
the cause of the gear whine noise because the deflection
under the input torque is not applied.
Figure 9 shows the engagement error meter that utilizes
the revolution angle measurement.
The transmission error is calculated from the revolution
data of the revolution angle meter installed on the exten-
sion line of the pinion and gear axes. To prevent motor-side
disturbance, the driving method with couplings and belts is
utilized, but the measured value tends to change due to the
revolutionary vibration of the transmission error.

Figure 7. Experimental setup for the single-flank measure-

ment of the hypoid gear (www.gleason.com). Figure 9. Conventional transmission error tester.
62 J. H. YOON, B. J. CHOI, I. H. YANG and J. E. OH

Figure 10. Transmission error measurements by angular

velocity using laser sensors.
To make up for this disadvantage, a method of mea-
suring the transmission error using laser sensors was sug-
gested, as shown in Figure 10. This transmission error
measurement method stabilized the revolution of the axle
input by using a flywheel, and it calculated the transmission
error by measuring the angular-velocity variation with the
use of laser sensors. This method, however, has the follow-
ing disadvantages: (1) there must be a transparent hole in
the body of the axle so that laser sensors can be used; and
(2) oil cannot be used to prevent errors due to the irregular
reflection of the laser angular-velocity meter. Because the
two aforementioned measurement methods use two revolu-
tion angle and angular-velocity meters by applying the
single-flank test method, the precision of the measurement
is reduced due to the transmission errors generated by the
revolution of the differential gear, which results from the
differential movement of the right/left axis generated with
the fixed output axis of one side. Therefore, in this study,
the revolution angles of the three axes on the axle were
measured to make up for the aforementioned disadvantages
of the proposed method. The transmission errors in the
input torque section of the axle, which has noise sections in
vehicles, were measured using the triaxial transmission
error evaluation. This method of evaluating the triaxial
transmission error of the axle may also be applied to FF
manual transmission and its axle. Figure 11 shows the pro-
Figure 12. Triaxial-transmission-error measurements using
a rotary encoder.
cesses of configuring and computing the triaxial transmission
error, and Figure 12 is a diagram of the actual triaxial
transmission error measurement experiments. Three ring
encoders (ERM280) of HEIDENHAIN with three Rotec E-
DR counter boards were used on the input, LH output, and
RH output of the axle. Each encoder rotation signal was
calculated with RAS software by Rotec. Because a revolu-
tionary angle meter has an angle revolution power of
20480 per revolution, it was possible to measure the trans-
mission error with a high precision: 200 or more times the
number of gear teeth (30~80) to be measured.
4. DEFLECTION UNDER THE INPUT TORQUE
4.1. Deflection under Input Torque of the Automobile
Figure 13 shows the coordinate system of the hypoid gear.
Figure 14 shows the results of the deflection test under the
Figure 13. Axial coordinate of the hypoid gear.

Figure 11. Hardware and software schematic diagram of

the triaxial-transmission-error tester. Figure 14. E, P, G − axial deflection test results.
 DEFLECTION TEST AND TRANSMISSION ERROR MEASUREMENT TO IDENTIFY HYPOID GEAR 63

deflection was 0.03 mm when accelerating (drive), which

Figure 15. α-axial deflection test result.
axle input torque of the E (offset direction), P (pinion
direction), and G (gear direction) axis, and Figure 15 shows
the α angle. Table 2 shows the result of the gear tooth
contact test under the input torque. The variation of the
tooth contact shows spreads out toward the heel as the
torque increases in the typical Toe Bias In pattern. Accord-
ing to the input torque, the P axis tends to show a +
direction on the drive side of the gear contact tooth when
accelerating a vehicle, and a − direction on the coast side of
the contact gear when decelerating a vehicle. The gene-
rated deflection was between 0.02 mm and −0.025 mm. In
the case of the G axis, both the accelerating tooth (drive
side) and the decelerating tooth (coast side) were deflected
in the same direction, and the deflection was 0.042 mm
when decelerating (coast) and 0.018 mm when accele-
rating, which means that deflection is two times more
sensitive when decelerating (coast). For the E axis, the
is lower than −0.045 mm when decelerating. For the α axis,
it was 89.96 when decelerating (drive), which means the
deflections are more sensitive than when accelerating
(drive).
4.2. Triaxial Transmission Error Measurement Results
Eleven axle pinion gears and 43 gear teeth were used in the
test. As in Figure 11, the results of the triaxial transmission
error measurement shown in Figure 16 show the measured
revolution number of the time axis of the three channels
(input, LH output, RH output) in the hardware. The aver-
age rpm of the two output axis rpms that were measured is
shown in Figure 17. The average rpm of the two output
axes was calculated because the ratio of the output axis rpm
to the input rpm is always stable mechanically because the
output axis is connected to the differential gear at the
center. Therefore, when measuring the transmission error
of the three axes of the axle, the average rpm of the gear
can be calculated by computing the average of the two
rpms because there is a difference between LH and RH.
Figure 18 shows the angular displacement over time. This
wave form resulted from the measurement of each dis-
placement against the pinion gear with the revolution of the
pinion gear, i.e., it is not the averaged result. Figure 19
shows that the short wave passed through the high pass

Table 2. Tooth contact pattern results.

Drive Coast
N·m Tooth contact N·m Tooth contact
20 −20

50 −110 Figure 16. Triaxial rpm measurement results in the time

domain.
80 −200

200 −290

410 −410

600 −500

800 − −

1000 − − Figure 17. LH and RH output shaft rpm averaging results

in the time domain.
64 J. H. YOON, B. J. CHOI, I. H. YANG and J. E. OH
Figure 18. Total signal by reference input pinion gear rpm
signal.
Figure 19. Total signal and long and short waves of the
pinion gear.
Figure 20. Total signal and long and short waves of the
gear.
Figure 21. Average tooth pitch result.
filter and the long wave through the low pass filter in the
total signal. Here the long wave represents the runout
volume of the pinion gear, and the short wave represents
the transmission error of the pinion gear. Like Figure 19,
Figure 20 shows the transmission error of the gear. Figure
21, on the other hand, shows the averaged transmission
error of the tooth pitch when the pinion and gears rotate
while engaged with each other. Generally, the transmission
error was analyzed against the 1st = A1, 2nd = A2, and 3rd
= A3 orders, which corresponded with the mash order of
the pinion, by analyzing the result of the FFT shown in
Figure 21. The values of each order were the representative
values of the transmission errors of the pinion and gears.
5. DESCRIPTION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF
COAST NOISE BY DEFLECTION DATA
5.1. Coast Noise Development
To identify the cause of the coast noise that occurs during
driving, the transmission error due to input load was mea-
sured. Figure 22 shows the transmission error measurement
results. The major cause for coast noise was the high
transmission error of 14 µ rad or above in the zone of the
torque that works as the input torque to the axle as the
vehicle decelerates. The rectangular dotted line indicates
the torque zone that is associated with the axle input. To
reduce the noise that occurs during coasting, as shown in
Figure 23, the transmission errors for each input torque
Figure 22. Transmission error of coast noise axle test result.
Figure 23. Development method of coast noise hypoid
gear.
Figure 24. Transmission error calculation result of coast
noise gear and long contact pattern.
 DEFLECTION TEST AND TRANSMISSION ERROR MEASUREMENT TO IDENTIFY HYPOID GEAR
Figure 25. Comparison of coast noise gear and long contact
pattern tooth profile measurement results.
were compared with a 0.1~0.15 mm lengthened pattern on
the coast side. The results from the deflection test of E, P,
G, and α were applied using the S/W of Gleason Hypoid
gear. In Figure 24, the calculation results of the trans-
mission error for each input load before and after the
change in the length of the coast side pattern were com-
pared. The gear was produced by verifying the corrected
gear teeth on the coast side with the calculation results that
the transmission error value is lowered in the torque zone
where the noise occurs as the vehicle coasts. Figure 25
shows the results from the comparison between the gear
teeth of the coast noise gear and long contact pattern gear.
In the figure, the top plot compares results from the coast
side noise gear and long contact pattern gear on the drive
side, while the bottom compares results on the coast side.
The points that show the difference between two gear teeth
are indicated with a rectangular dotted line. From point 3 to
point 9 in the heel direction, the teeth value is relatively
negative (‘−’) and continues to be lowered in the heel
direction. The axle was assembled with long contact
pattern gear, and the transmission error at axle ass’y was
measured. Figure 26 compares the transmission error
results from the coast noise gear axle ass’y and the long
Figure 26. Transmission error measurement results of the
coast noise axle and long contact pattern axle.
65
Figure 27. Car test results of coast noise axle and long
contact pattern axle #1 and #2.
contact pattern gear axle ass’y across the input torque. The
rectangular dotted line indicates the zone to which the axle
input torque is applied when the vehicle decelerates. It is
consistent with the transmission error calculation results in
Figure 24. Figure 27 shows the measurement results of
interior noise when the vehicle decelerates. In the zones
from 80 to 90 kph, 95 to 110 kph and 120 to 130 kph,
where coast noise was problematic, the noise level was
reduced by 5~8 dB (A).
6. CONCLUSION
To identify the gear whine noise in the axle composed of a
hypoid gear and reduce the noise in a decelerating vehicle,
the corrected gear teeth and transmission error measures
were compared by applying the amount of deflection in the
input torque zone of the noise occurring zones. The gear
produced based on these results also confirmed that the
transmission error from input torque shows the same trend
in axle ass’y. In addition, the noise level was reduced by
5~8 dB (A) in the actual vehicle in the noise-occurring
zone. These findings suggest that the occurrence of hypoid
gear whine noise will be minimized if, based on these
results, the target range of the axle input torque for the
development of optimal hypoid gear is measured and set as
the range of axle input torque and if the amount of
transmission error from input torque is verified analytically
for corrected teeth gear; moreover, the consequences of
applying the deflection measurement results and reflected
onto the product are determined.
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