Gear Problems:

Gear Misalignment

Figure 1 - Typical FFT Showing Gear Misalignment

Gear Misalignment - Makes the natural rotation of the gears more difficult since they must fight
their way through an area where the gear teeth are misaligned. The causes a momentary binding
(slowing) of the rotation. The FFT turns this phenomenon into amplitude peaks at 2x rotational
speeds of the gears and 2x GMF. Each of these symptoms - primarily the 2x GMF - may indicate a
gear alignment problem (which may, of course, be induced with poor coupling alignment or other
external factors such as soft foot).
Gear Misalignment Symptoms:
•Highest amplitudes at 2x GMF.
•Amplitude peaks at other GMF harmonics - 1x, 3x, etc.
•High amplitude sidebands particularly around 2x GMF at 1x or even 2x rpm.
•Shaft running speed harmonics - 2x and even 3x rpm.
Recommended Actions:
•Inspect gears for wear patterns misalignment causes uneven wear.
•Check for external problems - shaft alignment, soft foot, etc.
 Gear Problems:
Hunting Tooth Frequency

Figure 1 - Typical FFT Showing Hunting Tooth Symptoms

Hunting Tooth Frequency (FHT) - Is the phenomenon in which two teeth - one on each gear - that
are damaged contact one another at a particular frequency. In other words, every once in a while
during the normal rotation of these gears, those two teeth will enter the mesh area simultaneously
and contact one another. You can imagine that this would be a relatively low frequency - lower than
the rpm of either gear. It is, in fact, determined by the common factors of the number of teeth on
each gear. The best way to explain this unusual frequency is with an example.
•A 2000 rpm gear with 24 teeth is driving a gear with 84 teeth. That would make the output
speed 2000 x 24/84 = 571.4 rpm. To calculate what the hunting tooth frequency is, you must
first determine the common factors of each gear (CF). To do this, simply list all the
multiplication possibilities for each tooth number and compare:

24 Tooth Gear 1 x 24 84 Tooth Gear 1 x 84

2 x 12 2 x 42
3 x 8 3 x 28
4 x 6 4 x 21
6 x 14
7 x 12
 •What are the common factors ? The numbers that appear in each column are: 1, 2, 3, 4,
6 and 12. The highest common factor is what we are after and that number (in this
example) is 12. What if you had 23 teeth on the pinion ? Since the only numbers that can
be multiplied to generate 23 are 1x23, the only common frequency would be 1 unless the
other gear had a number of teeth that was an exact multiple of 23 (23, 46, 69, 92, etc.).
•Next, we use that number in the following formula:
Gear Mesh Freq x Common Freq)
Hunting Tooth Frequency=
#Teeth Pinion x #Teeth Bull Gear)

•In this case, that equals (48000 x 12)/(24 x 84) = 285.7 cpm. That means that 285.7 times
per minute, those bad teeth (one on each gear) will enter mesh together and generate a very
high vibration pulse. That may seem rather high but usually the CF is not as high as 12 - often
it will be 1.
•Note that the lower the highest common factor is, the lower the FHT is. If we had 23 teeth on
the pinion gear instead of 24 in the previous example, the CF would be 1 and the FHT would be
24.84 cpm.
•Note also that you would need extremely good resolution to find any of these frequencies -
you certainly won't isolate the FHT with the same spectrum used to check 1, 2 & 3x GMF.
Hunting Tooth Symptoms:

•Amplitude peaks at 1 x FHT and possibly 2 x FHT.

•Sidebands of FHT around 1x rpm (of each shaft).
•Sidebands of FHT around 1x GMF and harmonics.
•Pulsing, growling noise coming from gearbox or drive.
NOTE: Spectrum resolution will determine if any of the above symptoms are actually visible on a
spectrum. In the above example, for instance, to detect sidebands at FHT (143 cpm) around 1x
GMF (48,000 cpm), spectrum resolution of about 45 cpm/line would be required. For a 180,000
Fmax (capturing 1, 2 & 3x GMF), that requires 4000 lines of resolution (3200 would be borderline,
6400 would work fine).

Recommended Actions:
•Inspect gears for damage.