The transmission advantage of spiral bevel gear is being widely used in the industrial field, and the technology of machining spiral bevel gear has been constantly updated. The development process of spiral bevel gear is as follows: as early as the early 1960s, scholars wildhaber and Baxter of Gleason company in the United States obtained through research that the transmission of spiral bevel gear is not a simple motion relationship, but a complex curved surface motion similar to spiral motion; 1674 Danish astronomer Olaf Roemer used the conjugate tooth surface for gear transmission. His method to obtain the first pair of conjugate tooth surface gears is to use the cycloid enveloped by each other as the gear profile; In 1765, the Swiss mathematician Euler L according to scientific research, the transmission principle conjugate of gear transmission is obtained. Through this principle, the good performance of plane gear tooth profile is expounded, such as assembly, production and movement; In 1820, French geometer T. Olivier proposed the envelope surface method for solving the conjugate tooth surface. This method is the conjugate tooth surface obtained by geometric method. This solution is somewhat one-sided, but it has obtained the definition of spiral bevel gear; In 1910, German Paul Bottcher proposed two methods of machining spiral bevel gears: single tooth indexing and continuous indexing. These two methods are the cutting processing realized by milling cutter head. In order to verify these two methods, he designed and manufactured the first prototype, and used this prototype to process the first spiral bevel gear pair cut by end milling cutter, The teeth of the gears processed by these two methods are of equal height, and the processed gears belong to a pair of conjugate gears.
Among all metal cutting machines, the structure of curved bevel gear machining machine tool is the most complex. The research and manufacturing of spiral bevel gear abroad is in a leading position, especially in the United States. The precision, wear resistance and fatigue strength of spiral bevel gears processed by them are in the leading position in the world. In the world known as the “gear world”, American Gleason company produces a variety of spiral bevel gear processing machine tools. At first, experts only deduced some calculation formulas for spiral bevel gear technology in theory, and did not make the real spiral bevel gear tooth surface, because the spiral bevel gear machining machine tool has not been manufactured. About a century later, spiral bevel gear machining machine tools have been gradually developed, and spiral bevel gear technology has also developed by leaps and bounds. In 1913, the world’s first machine tool for machining spiral bevel gears came out. It uses a complex transmission chain and mainly relies on the meshing between gears to transmit power. It is easy to have machining errors, and it is difficult to calculate the machining adjustment. Subsequently, Gleason company launched No.116 machine tool. The tool tilting mechanism on this machine tool adopts electrical control. It is the first machine tool to apply advanced meshing theory to spiral bevel gear processing. In order to improve efficiency and reduce the waste of manpower and material resources, Baxter uses the mathematical analysis method to calculate the combination equation data of the tooth surface, uses the computer to simulate the combination graph of the tooth surface, accurately modifies its equation, and then modifies the machine tool parameters. This method makes the machining of spiral bevel gears develop rapidly in the direction of flexibility and NC. In 1973, Oricon company launched S17 spiral bevel gear processing machine tool, which is controlled by PLC, which means that the spiral bevel gear processing machine tool can use PLC control method. In 1986, gmaxx2010 spiral bevel gear processing machine tool came out. This machine tool adopts the freely selected single tooth indexing method and continuous indexing processing method. A large number of machine tool parameters adopt the digital control method. The motion relationship between the workpiece, shaking table and cutter head is completed by the digital control system, which makes the spiral bevel gear processing technology to a new level, The machining efficiency of spiral bevel gear is improved. In 1989, the CNC free form machine tool produced and manufactured by Gleason completely broke through the original spiral bevel gear processing method and removed some complex structures, such as shaking table and tool tilting mechanism. The structure of the machine tool has undergone great changes, as shown in the figure. In 2003, Gleason company launched Phoenix II CNC gear processing machine tool, which is equipped with bevel gear manufacturing expert system gems.
The system realizes the use of network communication technology to further sublimate the NC technology. Soon after, Klingelnberg company also launched the universal machine tool – knc40. Its mechanical transmission structure is realized by the drive system, which is light and flexible in control, so as to improve the work efficiency. It can process not only the gear made of glason, but also the gear made of Oerlikon or Klingelnberg. From now on, the spiral bevel gear processing machine tool has entered the numerical control era, the machine tool shape is more simple and unique, the humanization is greatly enhanced, the production efficiency has been improved several times, and the rigidity of the machine tool has been significantly improved. Gleason has produced a large number of machine tools, such as gear milling machines 250hc, 275hc, 450hc and gear grinding machines 200g, 450g, 600g, etc. the control systems of these machine tools adopt the world-famous brand CNC systems FANUC 160i – B and Siemens 840D. Fanuc 160i- B has only 2 channels and can control up to 8 axes, which can realize 6-axis linkage; Siemens 840D has three channels, which can control 31 axes at most, and 10 spindles at most. It can realize the five axis linkage of X, y, Z, a and B, and can process three-dimensional space surfaces of any shape. But these two systems are quite expensive.
At present, Gleason company of the United States has become increasingly mature in the research of spiral bevel gear technology and manufacturing and processing machine tool technology, and is an authority in the world. Klingelnberg of Germany and Oerlikon of Switzerland follow closely in these two aspects. Although other countries such as Japan and the former Soviet Union have also conducted in-depth research and made some progress, However, it is still far behind in application technology. The sales volume of spiral bevel gear processing machine tools of American Gleason company is second to none.