Rapid hob tip corner optimization of spur gears for increasing bending strength

Abstract

Spur gears are widely applied in transmissions of heavy load cases, such as turbines, ships, mining devices, and other industrial applications. Increasing the tooth root bending strength offers great potential to increase the power density of gearboxes. To obtain a higher bending strength without increasing manufacturing costs, this study intends to find an optimal tooth root contour by optimizing the hob tip corner geometry. A rapid optimization method is thus proposed, consisting of a quick hobbing simulation to generate the tooth root fillet for arbitrary hob tip corners, a fast meshing adaptation mapping rule to guarantee the high mesh quality of different gear tooth geometries, and an analytical equation for calculating the maximum principal stress of the tooth root margin. The results show that the computing time only takes 5–8 min for each optimization, and an average potential of 15% is obtained for various gear parameters. Furthermore, a unified optimal hob tip contour, suitable for a wide range of gears, is also found with an average optimization potential of 13%. This study contributes greatly to the rapid optimization of the tooth root geometry and the corresponding hob tip geometry for high bending strength.