Local resonance is a key reason for fatigue damage of gear housings.Local modals could be excited by vibration caused by gear meshing.Considering the shearer rocker arm for example,the local resonance characteristics of gear housing are analyzed in this paper.Finite element method is used to obtain the natural characteristics of housing and field testing with 0 load is employed to get the vibration acceleration values at the ratings.Local resonance characteristics are obtained by comparing frequency spectrum and natural frequencies.Housing wall thicknesses are selected as design variables to get the influence to natural frequencies.The results show that new frequencies which consist of meshing frequencies of different transmission stages occur and some of them can cause local resonance.Housing wall thicknesses should be changed to avoid local resonance.Excessive strain stress could be caused by local resonance and incur fatigue damage.This research could be a reference for resonance analysis and optimum design.