MODELING AND SIMULATION OF ROLLER CHAIN DRIVE

Abstract

A roller chain drive, consisting of roller chain, a driver sprocket and a driven sprocket, has been modeled mathematically. The chain has been modeled with the spring mass damper system and the contact between roller of the chain and sprocket using continuous force method. This contact force is a function of pseudo penetration between the roller and sprocket, impacting velocities and restitution coefficient. The methodology is implemented in computational code to study the dynamic of the drive, including chain flexibility and contact force between the chain and sprocket. The model proposed effectively represents the polygon effect, always present in this type of drive and therefore, all vibration dynamics associated to it. An experimental setup has been fabricated to study torque and velocity fluctuation in roller chain drive. It consists of two sprockets, in which one driver sprocket is powered by induction motor. It transmits power to driven sprocket via roller chain. One drum brake assembly is provided to study the variations in actual loading conditions. The angular velocity of sprocket is measured by incremental type optical encoder. A data acquisition system (such as FFT analyzer) is used to obtain data from the sensor which is transferred to computer where it can analyze by plotting graphs. The main. motive of this work to study variations of angular velocities of driving and driven shaft and fluctuation of torque during different loading condition.