Principle and Method for Machining Face Gear with Developable Ruled Surface

Abstract

The tooth surface of a face gear is recognized as un-developable ruled surface in tradition, which result in the problem that face gear generation using simple cutter with high efficiency and accuracy puzzled people for a long time. Applying the traditional shaping method for face gear generation in derivation of the tooth surface position vector, a space straight line equation was established by using this vector, to illustrate that the tooth surface of the traditional face gear could be considered as developable ruled surface constituted by space lines family, the position vectors of the developable ruled surface were established respectively based on involute, rack and considering the spatial position relationship in meshing. Elaboration and proposition of the principle and method that were used to generate the face gear with the developable ruled surface by straight edged cutter in line contact, and representation of the generated surface model. Furthermore the developable ruled surface was compared to the traditional surface, the normal difference between the two kinds of surfaces is on micro-scale. Numerical examples shows that the normal distance is no more than 1/70 of modulus, the developable ruled surface to which was performed simple longitudinal crowning is able to mesh with the involute surface of the pinion correctly, and demonstrates acceptable geometric meshing performance.