A Novel Asymmetric Face Gear Cut by Duplex Face-Milling With Multiple Auxiliary Flank Modification Motions

Abstract

Face gear sets, comprising a face gear and a cylindrical pinion, are used in the crossed axes transmission with the advantages of easy assembly and a large gear ratio. Based on the geometry of a pinion tooth flank, the tooth surface of the face gear is derived and manufactured by gear hobbing or shaping processes. However, the hobbing and shaping processes to make a face gear require special machine attachments to achieve the spatial relationship between the gear cutter and the workpiece of the face gear. These special machine attachments are not always available in a typical gear-machining factory, so this study develops a manufacturing process that uses a standard spiral bevel gear generator and standard face-milling cutting tools to produce a face gear. The productivity and the gear quality of a face gear that is made using the proposed cutting method are similar to that for a spiral bevel gear that is produced by indexed duplex cutting. The machine settings for the spiral bevel gear generator are derived using the tooth surface of a face gear, which is conjugated to the tooth surface of specific pinion. This study uses a duplex face-milling method with multiple auxiliary flank modification motions to minimize the flank normal deviation between the conjugate and the generated face gear. A numerical example and a cutting experiment are performed to verify the feasibility of the proposed methodology.