The cutting technology of spiral bevel gear was first proposed by wildhaber and Baxter of Gleason company in the United States. Later, Oerlikon company of Switzerland and Klingelnberg company of Germany also studied the tooth cutting technology of spiral bevel gear and formulated their respective tooth systems. Among them, Oerlikon and Klingelnberg proposed the bevel gear tooth system with long epicycloid, while Gleason proposed the bevel gear tooth system with circular arc. In China, Gleason spiral bevel gear is the most widely used bevel gear among spiral bevel gears. As mentioned above, Gleason tooth system is mainly circular arc bevel gear, and Oerlikon and Klingelnberg tooth system is mainly long epicycloid bevel gear. Circular arc bevel gear is mainly processed by face milling method, while long epicycloid bevel gear is mainly processed by face rolling method. At present, these two methods are mainly used for bevel gear processing in industry.
Gleason’s mechanical transmission spiral bevel gear cutting machine tools have a variety of styles. However, because the tooth surface of spiral bevel gear belongs to spatial surface and the tooth surface equation is extremely complex, the structure of gear cutting machine tool is particularly complex, and the control of gear cutting motion, machine tool adjustment and tooth shape correction are also very cumbersome and difficult. As early as 1954, Gleason company launched a spiral bevel gear cutting machine tool, which is a pure mechanical transmission machine tool with lengthy mechanical transmission chain [79]. With the rapid development of computer technology, NC machining technology has been continuously improved and perfected, and the machining of spiral bevel gear is also developing rapidly in the direction of flexibility and intelligence. After the introduction of numerical control technology into gear processing machine tools, Gleason company launched the famous Phoenix I and Phoenix II series machine tools. The introduction of Phoenix series machine tools has greatly improved the machining accuracy and efficiency of spiral bevel gears.
At present, the main models of Phoenix II series gear cutting machine tools produced by Gleason company include 275hc and 600hc gear milling machines and 275g and 600g gear grinding machines. With the continuous development of computer technology, Gleason company has developed a set of supporting software for Phoenix series gear cutting machine tools, Gleason expert manufacturing system (GEMS system for short). Gmes system mainly includes five modules: Computer Aided gear technology engineering, Gleason gear automatic evaluation, adjustment card management program, finite element analysis and universal motion design principle software. The system integrates the design, analysis and management software modules of spiral bevel gear, and realizes seamless connection with Phoenix series spiral bevel gear cutting machine tools. It is a classic example of spiral bevel gear manufacturing system with efficient cooperation among computer optimization design, cutting motion control and machine tool adjustment.