Abstract
Gear jet lubrication, although highly efficient, presents significant challenges for reliable study and design due to its complexity. Over the last decades, Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) has emerged as a valuable tool, providing both qualitative and quantitative analyses to enhance the design of gear lubrication systems. CFD applications encompass predicting impingement, simulating oil spreading behaviors, quantifying lubricant flows in the engaging area, estimating heat dissipation, and evaluating load independent power losses resulting from churning, squeezing, or windage. Scientific investigations include diverse complexities of gearing systems, ranging from single spur gears to sophisticated configurations such as planetary and spiral bevel gearboxes. Various mesh handling methods, such as Local Remeshing Approach, Overset Grid, Rotating Reference Frame, Sliding Mesh, and meshless techniques like Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), have been adeptly employed. Both compressible and incompressible models can be found in the literature, as well as isothermal or Conjugate Heat Transfer (CHT) models. The multiple studies consider different turbulence models, such as k-ω or k-ε. Noteworthy studies have undergone experimental validation, reinforcing the reliability of CFD outcomes. The objective of this paper is to collect and categorize the multitude of CFD studies on gear jet lubrication present in the literature, shedding light on commonalities and variations in approaches across diverse scientific works. This paper offers a critical state-of-the-art overview in the field.