Concave modifications of tooth surfaces of beveloid gears with crossed axes

Abstract

The mathematical models of the beveloid gear surfaces with different scenarios of combinations of profile concave modification and lead crowning are derived. Four schemes of modifications were proposed for beveloid gears with crossed axes. Tooth contact analysis is developed to study the influences of different schemes of concave modifications on the mesh behaviors including film thickness, transmission errors, contact ratio, root stresses, and contact patterns. Comparison of the contact characteristics of a beveloid gear drive with and without concave modifications is conducted. The results show that all the concave modification schemes can increase the area of contact patterns and decrease the maximum value of contact stresses, while the minimum film thickness can be increased. For the scheme i.e. the pinion with profile crowning modification and gear with profile concave modification, the contact ratio increases firstly then decreases to a relative lower value. Also, the root stresses are increased obviously. For the scheme for pinion without modification and gear with lead concave modification and the scheme for both pinion and gear with lead concave modification, the transmission errors are decreased slightly. The scheme for the pinion with combined crowning modification and gear with combined concave modification shows the largest improvement for the mesh behaviors in terms of the transmission errors and contact patterns where an almost contact condition can be found for the crossed beveloid gear pair.