Accuracy Measurement and Evaluation of Straight Bevel Gear Manufactured by End Mill Using CNC Milling Machine

Abstract

Straight bevel gears are usually manufactured with various machines and systems, and the tooth profiles are produced by grinding or machining by means of a tool with many cutting edges. In recent years, the straight bevel gear has been manufactured by an end mill using a computer numerical control (CNC) milling machine because the use of the auxiliary apparatus, special cutters, and special machine tools is not needed. Using this method, the gear manufacturing with high accuracy is an important problem. In this paper, the coordinate measurement of the straight bevel gear manufactured in this method is performed and the gear accuracy is evaluated. The tooth profiles of the straight bevel gear generated by a quasi-complementary crown gear instead of a conventional complementary crown gear are introduced. For this study, the tooth profiles of the straight bevel gear were modeled using a 3D computer-aided design system and the gear was manufactured by an end mill using a CNC milling machine based on a computer-aided manufacturing process. Afterward, the coordinates of many points on the gear tooth surfaces were measured at random using a coordinate measuring machine. This coordinate measurement provides the information about the factors related to the gear accuracy such as pressure angle, tooth angle error, workpiece setting angle, apex to back, and so on. Therefore, the values of the above factors were estimated and were compared with the theoretical ones, respectively.