Computerized Investigation of Real Tooth Contact Analysis of Face-milled Spiral Bevel Gears

Real tooth contact analysis of spiral bevel gears is based on the original tooth surface grids (OTSG) formed by coordinate measuring machine (CMM). Since the size of OTSG is smaller than the tooth surface, it is sometimes impossible to get full meshing information. Reverse engineering is a way to solve the problem. The basic idea is to expand OTSG to the tooth surface boundary by reversing the manufacturing parameters of the spiral bevel gear drive. Thus a generalized reversing objective is set up for both of the gear and the pinion, which is the summation of deviations of all nodes between OTSG and corresponding computational tooth surface grids (CTSG) expressed by manufacturing parameters. The gear manufacturing parameters are reversed by observing duplex method. The pinionmanufacturing parameters are reversed by attempting the meshing behavior taken as input to local synthesis with modified roll motion. The initial meshing behavior is approximately ascertained by discrete tooth contact analysis based on OTSG, and meshing behavior at the mean contact point is figured out by interpolation method for function of transmission errors and contact path. Having reversed the manufacturing parameters, OTSG is expanded to the tooth surface boundary and real tooth contact analysis is conducted. A zero bevel gear drive of an aviation engine was employed to demonstrate the validity of the proposed methodology. The proposed method makes the real tooth contact analysis practical and provides prospect to improve meshing behavior more precisely.