Fitting process carried out in the automobile transmission assembly line is classified into three classes; heat fitting, press fitting, and their combined fitting. Heat fitting is a method that heats gear to a suitable range under the tempering temperature and squeezes it toward the outer diameter of shaft. Its stress depends on the yield strength of gear. Press fitting is a method that generally squeezes gear toward that of shaft at room temperature by a press. Another method heats warmly gear and safely squeezes it toward that of shaft. Warm shrink fitting process for the automobile transmission part is now gradually increased, but the parts (shaft/gear) assembled by this process produced dimensional changes in both the outer diameter and profile of the gear. So that it may cause noise and vibration between gears. In order to solve these problems, we need an analysis of warm shrink fitting process, in which design parameters are involved; contact pressure according to fitting interference between outer diameter of shaft and inner diameter of gear, fitting temperature, and profile tolerance of gear.
In this study, an closed form equation to predict contact pressure and fitting load was proposed in order to develop an optimization technique of the warm shrink fitting process and verified its reliability through the experimental results measured in the field and FEM, that is, thermal-structural coupled field analysis. Actual loads measured in the field was in good agreements with the results obtained by the theoretical and finite element analysis.
