Step-by-step algorithm for the simulation of a faulted gearbox

This paper focuses on the simulation of expected vibration signal of a faulted gearbox. The main mechanical components simulated are ordinary and planetary gears. In a previous work [1] the authors presented a step-by-step algorithm for the simulation of faulted bearings. In this paper the model has been ideally extended to include ordinary and epicyclic gears and their most common faults, such as pitting or crack on a tooth, the presence of backlash or bent shafts. Although several detailed models are available in literature, the scientific papers just outline the theoretical foundations of assumptions and features of the model - as supposed - leaving to the reader the task of converting all the procedure in lines of code. This is in contrast with the idea of “reproducible research”, which posits the possibility of being able to reproduce the proposed procedure and verifying the conclusions of the paper. As soon as the model is verified by scientific community, it could be used as preliminary test-bench, for the validation of new diagnostics techniques that the reader could develop in the future. This project has been developed under a Creative Commons license (Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International). The reader could freely and immediately use to simulate different faults and different operating conditions on ordinary gearbox. The script is provided for the open-source Octave environment. The output signal is finally analyzed to prove the expected features.