The Road to First Flight: Development of the CH-53K Drive System

As the CH-53K program moved into manufacturing and test verification phase, a series of development challenges, such as overheating gearboxes, biased contact patterns of gear meshes and dynamic resonances of gearbox components were encountered during testing and were resolved through theoretical modeling and design modifications. This paper will present an overview discussion on how advanced analytical tools, such as computational fluid dynamics (CFD), Gleason T900 FEA (Finite Element Analysis) software, ANSOL Calyx customizable multiple dynamic and static, 2D and 3D FE based contact solver software, and FEA for dynamic modeling of structures, were used to simulate gearbox lubrication systems, optimize gear-train contact patterns, tune modal frequencies and damp resonances of gearbox internal components.