An analytical method to control and predict grinding textures on modified gear tooth flanks in CNC generating gear grinding

Abstract

• A method to control and predict gear surface texture is proposed. • Both dressing and grinding motions are considered in generating gear grinding. • Oblique direction of texture patterns on gear tooth flanks is adjustable and predictable. • Gear tooth topology modification with oblique grinding texture is achievable. Natural motion in generating gear grinding often produces regular and mutually-parallel gear grinding texture, which induces higher pure-tone gear meshing noise than that with an irregular texture generated by gear honing. This study presents a generation method of irregular and oblique grinding texture on modified gear tooth flanks considering both dressing and grinding motions in a CNC generating gear grinder. The grinding texture is controllable via an additional installation angle between the grinding wheel and the work gear axes. Meanwhile, the gear tooth flank deviation caused by this variation is corrected by additional motions of machining axes . The sensitivity matrix (SM) combined with the Levenberg-Marquardt (LM) algorithm is employed to determine the additional motion functions. In numerical examples, effects of axial feeding speed, abrasive grain size, and installation angle variation on texture patterns and their mean roughness are investigated, respectively. A crowned tooth flank with irregular and oblique grinding texture is also demonstrated to prove the reasonability and validity of the proposed method.