This study investigates the stresses and deflections of a floating ring gear with external splines working in
a large planetary wheel motor of a mining truck. Such calculations carried out with conventional
engineering approaches described in popular standards and textbooks are not comprehensive because
of the complexity of the problem. These approaches can give us good stress numbers for non-floating
gears and some guidance about the rim thickness factor but they lack the capabilities to effectively
calculate the deflections and their influences on the stresses, especially for floating gears. Moreover they
cannot calculate an entire gearing system and the interdependent influences of the different components.
The model studied consists of a floating ring gear driving a torque tube. The ring gear is driven through
internal gear meshing by three planets and it transmits the torque to the torque tube through its external
splines. The torque tube transmits the motion to the hub and the truck tires.
A nonlinear static analysis of the ring gear and torque tube was conducted in ABAQUS. Linear 8-node
hex elements and linear tetra elements were used to model the ring gear and torque tube. External torque
was resolved into corresponding tangential force, which was then applied directly onto three of the ring
gear’s internal teeth. Contact pairs were used to capture the load transfer between the ring gear and
torque tube through the splines.

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