Advanced Design and Manufacture of Face-Hobbed Spiral Bevel Gears

The design and advanced manufacture of face-hobbed spiral bevel gears on computer numerical control (CNC) hypoid generating machines is presented. The concept of face-hobbed bevel gear generation by an imaginary generating crown gear is established. In order to reduce the sensitivity of the gear pair to errors in tooth-surfaces and to the mutual position of the mating members, modifications are introduced into the teeth of both members. The lengthwise crowning of teeth is achieved by applying a slightly bigger lengthwise tooth flank curvature of the crown gear generating the concave side of pinion/gear tooth-surfaces, and/or by using tilt angle of the head-cutter in the manufacture of pinion/gear teeth. The tooth profile modification is introduced by the circular profile of the cutting edge of head-cutter blades. An algorithm is developed for the execution of motions on the CNC hypoid generating machine using the relations on the cradle-type machine. The algorithm is based on the condition that since the tool is a rotary surface and the pinion/gear blank is also related to a rotary surface, it is necessary to ensure the same relative position of the head cutter and the pinion on both machines.