Computerized Analysis of Meshing and Contact of Gear Real Tooth Surfaces

The authors propose a technique for computerized simulation and tangency of gears provided with real tooth surfaces. The deviations of real tooth surfaces from the theoretical ones are caused by the distortion of surfaces during the heat treatment and lapping. The main ideas of the proposed technique are as follows: (i) The gear real tooth surface is represented by a sum of two vector functions that determine the theoretical tooth surface and the deviations of the real surface from the theoretical one, respectively. (ii) Both vector functions mentioned above are represented in terms of the same Gaussian surface coordinates (the Gaussian coordinates of the theoretical surface). (iii) The deviations of the real surface are initially determined numerically using the data of surface coordinate measurements. The analytical representation of the vector function of deviations is based on the interpolation of a numerically given vector function by a bi-cubic spline. The interpolation provides a relatively high precision because it is accomplished for the surface of small deviations but not for the whole real surface. (iv) The computerized simulation of meshing and tangency of gears with real tooth surfaces is based on the algorithm that describes the conditions of continuous tangency of real tooth surfaces. The proposed approach is illustrated with application to the hypoid gear drive with real tooth surfaces. The data of surface deviations have been determined experimentally at the Nissan Motor Co.