7: Accessory drives

Contents Page
Introduction 65
Gearboxes and drives 65
Internal gearbox
Radial driveshaft
Direct drive
Gear train drive
Intermediate gearbox
External gearbox
Auxiliary gearbox
Construction and materials 69
Gears
Gearbox sealing
Materials

GEARBOXES AND DRIVES

INTRODUCTION
1. Accessory units provide the power for aircraft
hydraulic, pneumatic and electrical systems in
addition to providing various pumps and control
systems for efficient engine operation. The high level
of dependence upon these units requires an
extremely reliable drive system.
2. The drive for the accessory units is typically
taken from a rotating engine shaft, via an internal
gearbox, to an external gearbox which provides a
mount for the accessories and distributes the
appropriate geared drive to each accessory unit. A
starter may also be fitted to provide an input torque
to the engine. An accessory drive system on a high
by-pass engine takes between 400 and 500
horsepower from the engine.
Internal gearbox
3. The location of the internal gearbox within the
core of an engine is dictated by the difficulties of
bringing a driveshaft radially outwards and the space
available within the engine core.
4. Thermal fatigue and a reduction in engine
performance, due to the radial driveshaft disturbing
the gasflow, create greater problems within the
turbine area than the compressor area. For any
given engine, which incorporates an axial-flow
compressor, the turbine area is smaller than that
containing the compressor and therefore makes it
physically easier to mount the gearbox within the
compressor section. Centrifugal compressor engines
can have limited available space, so the internal
gearbox may be located within a static nose cone or,
in the case of a turbo-propeller engine, behind the
propeller reduction gear as shown in fig. 7-1.
5. On multi-shaft engines, the choice of which
compressor shaft is used to drive the internal
gearbox is primarily dependent upon the ease of

65
 Accessory drives

Fig. 7-1 Mechanical arrangement of accessory drives.


Fig. 7-2 Mechanical arrangement of internal
gearboxes.
engine starting. This is achieved by rotating the
compressor shaft, usually via an input torque from
the external gearbox (Part 11). In practice the high
pressure system is invariably rotated in order to
generate an airflow through the engine and the high
pressure compressor shaft is therefore coupled to
the internal gearbox.
Accessory drives
6. To minimize unwanted movement between the
compressor shaft bevel gear and radial driveshaft
bevel gear, caused by axial movement of the
compressor shaft, the drive is taken by one of three
basic methods (fig. 7-2). The least number of
components is used when the compressor shaft
bevel gear is mounted as close to the compressor
shaft location bearing as possible, but a small
amount of movement has to be accommodated
within the meshing of the bevel gears. Alternatively,
the compressor shaft bevel gear may be mounted on
a stub shaft which has its own location bearing. The
stub shaft is splined onto the compressor shaft which
allows axial movement without affecting the bevel
gear mesh. A more complex system utilizes an idler
gear which meshes with the compressor shaft via
straight spur gears, accommodating the axial
movement, and drives the radial driveshaft via a
bevel gear arrangement. The latter method was
widely employed on early engines to overcome gear
engagement difficulties at high speed.
7. To spread the load of driving accessory units,
some engines take a second drive from the slower
rotating low pressure shaft to a second external
gearbox (fig. 7-1). This also has the advantage of
locating the accessory units in two groups, thus
overcoming the possibility of limited external space
on the engine. When this method is used, an attempt
is made to group the accessory units specific to the
engine onto the high pressure system, since that is
the first shaft to rotate, and the aircraft accessory
units are driven by the low pressure system. A typical
internal gearbox showing how both drives are taken
is shown in fig. 7-3.
Radial driveshaft
8. The purpose of a radial driveshaft is to transmit
the drive from the internal gearbox to an accessory
unit or the external gearbox. It also serves to transmit
the high torque from the starter to rotate the high
pressure system for engine starting purposes. The
driveshaft may be direct drive or via an intermediate
gearbox (para. 14).
9. To minimize the effect of the driveshaft passing
through the compressor duct and disrupting the
airflow, it is housed within the compressor support
structure. On by-pass engines, the driveshaft is
either housed in the outlet guide vanes or in a hollow
streamlined radial fairing across the low pressure
compressor duct.
10. To reduce airflow disruption it is desirable to
have the smallest driveshaft diameter as possible.
The smaller the diameter, the faster the shaft must

Fig. 7-3 An internal gearbox.
rotate to provide the same power. However, this
raises the internal stress and gives greater dynamic
problems which result in vibration. A long radial
driveshaft usually requires a roller bearing situated
halfway along its length to give smooth running. This
allows a rotational speed of approximately 25,000
r.p.m. to be achieved with a shaft diameter of less
than 1.5 inch without encountering serious vibration
problems.
Direct drive
11. In some early engines, a radial driveshaft was
used to drive each, or in some instances a pair, of
accessory units. Although this allowed each
Accessory drives
accessory unit to be located in any desirable location
around the engine and decreased the power
transmitted through individual gears, it necessitated
a large internal gearbox. Additionally, numerous
radial driveshafts had to be incorporated within the
design. This led to an excessive amount of time
required for disassembly and assembly of the engine
for maintenance purposes.
12. In some instances the direct drive method may
be used in conjunction with the external gearbox
system when it is impractical to take a drive from a
particular area of the engine to the external gearbox.
For example, fig. 7-1 shows a turbo-propeller engine
which requires accessories specific to the propeller
reduction drive, but has the external gearbox located
away from this area to receive the drive from the
compressor shaft.
Gear train drive
13. When space permits, the drive may be taken to
the external gearbox via a gear train (fig. 7-1). This
involves the use of spur gears, sometimes incorpo-
rating a centrifugal breather (Part 8). However, it is
rare to find this type of drive system in current use.
Intermediate gearbox
14. Intermediate gearboxes are employed when it is
not possible to directly align the radial driveshaft with
the external gearbox. To overcome this problem
an intermediate gearbox is mounted on the
high pressure compressor case and re-directs the
drive, through bevel gears, to the external
gearbox. An example of this layout is shown in fig.
7-1.
External gearbox
15. The external gearbox contains the drives for the
accessories, the drive from the starter and provides
a mounting face for each accessory unit. Provision is
also made for hand turning the engine, via the
gearbox, for maintenance purposes. Fig. 7-4 shows
the accessory units that are typically found on an
external gearbox.
16. The overall layout of an external gearbox is
dictated by a number of factors. To reduce drag
whilst the aircraft is flying it is important to present a
low frontal area to the airflow. Therefore the gearbox
is 'wrapped' around the engine and may look, from
the front, similar to a banana in shape. For
maintenance purposes the gearbox is generally
located on the underside of the engine to allow
ground crew to gain access. However, helicopter
installation design usually requires the gearbox to be
located on the top of the engine for ease of access.
17. The starter/driven gearshaft (fig. 7-4) roughly
divides the external gearbox into two sections. One
section provides the drive for the accessories which
require low power whilst the other drives the high
power accessories. This allows the small and large
gears to be grouped together independently and is
an efficient method of distributing the drive for the
minimum weight.
18. If any accessory unit fails, and is prevented
from rotating, it could cause further failure in the
external gearbox by shearing the teeth of the gear
train. To prevent secondary failure occurring a weak
section is machined into the driveshafts, known as a
'shear-neck', which is designed to fail and thus
protect the other drives. This feature is not included
for primary engine accessory units, such as the oil
pumps, because these units are vital to the running
of the engine and any failure would necessitate
immediate shutdown of the engine.
19. Since the starter provides the highest torque
that the drive system encounters, it is the basis of
design. The starter is usually positioned to give the
shortest drive line to the engine core. This eliminates
the necessity of strengthening the entire gear train
which would increase the gearbox weight. However,
when an auxiliary gearbox is fitted (para, 21) the
starter is moved along the gear train to allow the
heavily loaded auxiliary gearbox drive to pass
through the external gearbox. This requires the spur
gears between the starter and starter/driven
gearshaft to have a larger face width to carry the load
applied by the starter (fig. 7-5).
20. When a drive is taken from two compressor
shafts, as discussed in para. 7, two separate
gearboxes are required. These are mounted either
side of the compressor case and are generally
known as the 'low speed' and 'high speed' external
gearboxes.
Auxiliary gearbox
21. An auxiliary gearbox is a convenient method of
providing additional accessory drives when the con-
figuration of an engine and airframe does not allow
enough space to mount all of the accessory units on
a single external gearbox.
22. A drive is taken from the external gearbox (fig.
7-5) to power the auxiliary gearbox which distributes
the appropriate gear ratio drive to the accessories in
the same manner as the external gearbox.
CONSTRUCTION AND MATERIALS
Gears
23. The spur gears of the external or auxiliary
gearbox gear train (fig. 7-4 and 7-5) are mounted
between bearings supported by the front and rear
casings which are bolted together. They transmit the
drive to each accessory unit, which is normally
between 5000 and 6000 r.p.m. for the accessory
units and approximately 20,000 r.p.m. for the
centrifugal breather,
24. All gear meshes are designed with 'hunting
tooth' ratios which ensure that each tooth of a gear
does not engage between the same set of opposing
teeth on each revolution. This spreads any wear
evenly across all teeth.
Fig. 7-4 An external gearbox and accessory units.
25. Spiral bevel gears are used for the connection
of shafts whose axes are at an angle to one another
but in the same plane. The majority of gears within a
gear train are of the straight spur gear type, those
with the widest face carry the greatest loads. For
smoother running, helical gears are used but the
resultant end thrust caused by this gear tooth pattern
must be catered for within the mounting of the gear.
Gearbox sealing
26. Sealing of the accessory drive system is
primarily concerned with preventing oil loss. The
internal gearbox has labyrinth seals where the static
casing mates with the rotating compressor shaft. For
some o! the accessories mounted on the external
gearbox, an air blown pressurized labyrinth seal is
Fig. 7-5 An external gearbox with auxiliary gearbox drive.
employed. This prevents oil from the gearbox
entering the accessory unit and also prevents con-
tamination of the gearbox, and hence engine, in the
event of an accessory failure. The use of an air blown
seal results in a gearbox pressure of about 3 lbs. per
sq. in. above atmospheric pressure. To supplement a
labyrinth seal, an 'oil thrower ring' may be used. This
involves the leakage oil running down the driving
shaft and being flung outwards by a flange on the
rotating shaft. The oil is then collected and returned
to the gearbox.
Materials
27. To reduce weight, the lightest materials possible
are used. The internal gearbox casing is cast from
aluminium but the low environmental temperatures
that an external gearbox is subjected to allows the
use of magnesium castings which are lighter still.
The gears are manufactured from non-corrosion
resistant steels for strength and toughness. They are
case hardened to give a very hard wear resistant
skin and feature accurately ground teeth for smooth
gear meshing.