Life cycle assessment-driven collaborative optimization model of power dry cutting for face-hobbing hypoid gear production

Abstract

Efficient, high-precision, energy-saving, green manufacturing and low-cost design is an increasingly important target to life cycle assessment (LCA) for high-performance hypoid gear production. With development of numerical controlled (NC) technology of hypoid generator, power dry cutting is enabling ever-higher levels of production efficiency and sustainability. It also has the potential to dramatically influence sustainable development of hypoid gear product. Sufficient guidance, in this respect, is lacking in the scholarly or practitioner literature. In this work, focusing on LCA for hypoid gear production, we further examine power dry cutting in terms of application and sustainability implications. We introduce collaborative optimization considering geometric accuracy and loaded contact performances into the power dry cutting. Here, LCA-driven power dry cutting collaborative optimization model is proposed for face-hobbing hypoid gear production. At first, complex machine kinematics between cutting tool and work blank are developed for power dry cutting simulation. Then, tooth flank mathematical modeling is performed to output discretization points in a closed-form of the whole tooth flank including concave flank and convex flank. Moreover, in order to improve LCA, an accurate model of material removal collaborative optimization considering both geometric accuracy and loaded contact pattern is established for face-hobbing hypoid gears. Where, time-varying material removal path planning is developed. Then, sensitivity analysis strategy and genetic algorithm (GA) are proposed for the proposed model solution, respectively. Finally, numerical instances can demonstrate that the proposed model can get a very important access to power dry cutting having high LCA for face-hobbing hypoid gear production.