Comparison of Conventional Double-Helical and Curvilinear Cylindrical Gear Drives in Terms of Transmission Errors and Stress

Abstract

Summary Curvilinear cylindrical gear drives are similar to double-helical gear drives as they can avoid the axial thrust during the meshing process. Whether curvilinear cylindrical gear drives are better than double-helical gear drives is a problem to be solved. In this paper, a new gear-generating method for curvilinear gears is proposed based on the theory of gearing. Two different single-side face-milling cutters are used for the generation of concave and convex tooth surfaces, respectively. The curvilinear gear sets being generated have line contact in the meshing process. For the sake of comparison, the double-helical gear sets involved in the comparison study are also a kind of gear sets with line contact. This article includes the following: (1) Comparison of transmission errors and stresses of two types of gear sets with the same contact ratio; (2) Derivation of tooth surface equations, transmission error analysis, and finite element analysis; (3) Four numerical examples which show the advantages and disadvantages of curvilinear cylindrical gear