Digitization of spiral bevel gear machining technology in China

The digital machining technology of spiral bevel gear is developed with the gradual maturity of computer technology, information technology, network technology and numerical control technology. The CNC bevel gear processing machine tool (free form machine tool), represented by Phoenix series launched by Gleason company and C series launched by Oerlikon company, has created a new era of spiral bevel gear processing. At the same time, it also puts forward many new topics for the theoretical research of spiral bevel gear design and processing.

In the digital manufacturing process of spiral bevel gear, due to the use of tooth surface contact analysis (TCA) technology and tooth surface error correction technology, the machining efficiency and machining quality of spiral bevel gear are greatly improved. These two technologies are the key technology and basic technology in the digital manufacturing process of spiral bevel gear. Using digital manufacturing technology, the spiral bevel gear can be virtually machined by computer before the spiral bevel gear machining (without considering the machining error), and the tooth surface contact area and transmission error can be analyzed, the tooth surface contact area and transmission error can be corrected, and finally the machine tool adjustment parameters and tool parameter values for the initial machining can be obtained, so as to avoid the error caused by Gleason’s second-order tooth surface analysis before machining. Although the machining parameters are optimized, the actual measured tooth contact area and transmission error are inconsistent with the design requirements due to the tooth surface deformation of spiral bevel gear in the machining process and the error of machining parameters caused by the accuracy of machine tool and cutting tool. This needs to be solved by the tooth surface error detection and correction technology to be discussed below.

Although China’s spiral bevel gear machining technology has made great progress, there are also the following problems: first, there is a lack of basic research on the cutting mechanism of gear milling process. When designing spiral bevel gear milling machines in China, most of them use the analogy method with Gleason and other milling machines of the same specification to determine the original parameters, such as the maximum machining modulus, the maximum fast moving speed of NC shaft, the maximum feed speed, the power of main motor, the power of feed motor, etc; Secondly, the existing reference of cutting parameters for gear milling is aimed at the traditional mechanical gear milling machine. With the popularization of NC gear milling machine in the spiral bevel gear processing industry, the commonly used cutting parameter selection method in production practice is still to refer to the cutting parameters of mechanical gear milling machine, which is selected by the operator according to experience, which makes it difficult to give full play to the advantages of NC gear milling machine. Therefore, There is an urgent need for a solution to optimize the cutting parameters of NC gear milling in production; Finally, due to the complex topological structure of spiral bevel gear tooth surface, there is no mature method to measure its tooth surface roughness, and there is no method to pre control the tooth surface roughness. The visual measurement method of roughness measurement is used for qualitative judgment in production. How to solve the problems of tooth surface roughness evaluation and pre control also needs to be deeply studied.

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