A novel cutter design method to enhance adaptability and accuracy in CNC gear skiving process

Abstract

Currently, power skiving is a preferred method for efficient gear manufacturing. Achieving high accuracy in the skiving process can enhance gear drive performance or diminish the tool wear in subsequent finishing processes. Therefore, this study proposes a novel correction method to improve the accuracy of skived gears and the machining flexibility of the cutter. The cutting edge is first assumed to be the intersection curve between the imaginary helical gear and the rake plane. The normal vectors of cutter flanks along the cutting edge are then predicted by rotating the normal vectors of the imaginary helical gear about the tangent vectors of the cutting edge. Accordingly, this approach allows for determining the contact points between the generating rack and the cutter. Subsequently, the 3-D generating rack is attained, leading to the generation of the final cutting edge. The numerical results illustrate the high accuracy of the skived gears even with varying the cutter's design cutting angles and the work gear's helix angles and teeth numbers.