The present invention relates to a designing method of a gear skiving cutter, especially a designing method capable of designing a gear skiving cutter with grinding allowance. The present invention also includes the gear skiving cutter made by the designing method.
Gears are common operational parts and can be manufactured in different materials according to different requirements. Take cylindrical gears for example. When such gears are used as parts for transportation vehicles or measurement equipment with high precision, they are mostly made from metals or alloy metals that are hard enough for the sake of operational stability and sustainability. For such gears, gear skiving is one of the machining process to manufacture the teeth thereof.
Conventional gear skiving process can be regarded as a relative motion of helical gears along crossed axes. It mainly use a skiving cutter in a gear shape to rotate in high speed and contact a gear workpiece that is also rotated in high speed for simultaneous movements along multi axes. The skiving cutter is able to cut the gear workpiece by using a cutting edge of a rake plane in a similar meshing operation, so as to form the teeth profile on the gear workpiece. However, the profiles on both sides of the cutting edge are asymmetrical due to the design of the rake plane of the conventional skiving cutter with a rake angle and a side edge angle, causing uneven grinding allowance/stock on both sides of each tooth of the gear workpiece to produce errors of the tooth surface profile. Consequently, the precision of the formed gear workpiece will be greatly reduced. Without further grinding, such gear workpieces tend to cause malfunctioning problems on the machines or equipment with high precision they are installed. In addition, the uneven grinding allowance on both sides of each tooth of the gear workpiece would result in increased grinding period and costs.
Therefore, it is an issue to be resolved that how to provide a designing method for gear skiving cutters that can design and control the shape of the cutting surface on both sides of the gear skiving cutter in advance, so as to improve the problem of uneven grinding allowance occurred on the gear workpiece in the machining process.
An objective of the present invention is to provide a designing method of a gear skiving cutter with grinding allowance.
To achieve the objective mentioned above, the designing method includes: constructing a cutter manufacturing tool and a base material for the gear skiving cutter and simulating relative movements of the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material based on a relative motion coordinate system. The cutter manufacturing tool includes a plurality of tooth structure; a center of each tooth structure corresponds to a base plane and includes a first side portion and a second side portion opposite to the first side portion. The first side portion forms a first grinding allowance structure raised toward the base plane and the second side portion forms a second grinding allowance structure raised toward the base plane; wherein the first grinding allowance structure is different from the second grinding allowance structure, so that each tooth structure forms an asymmetrical structure based on the base plane. Simulating relative movements of the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material based on the relative motion coordinate system is for the plurality of tooth structures of the cutter manufacturing tool to contact the base material to perform a surface processing, so as to form a plurality of cut teeth on the base material. Wherein each cut tooth includes an outer contour and a rake plane formed at an end of the outer contour, and each rake plane including a rake angle and a side edge angle.
In an embodiment, the first grinding allowance structure includes a first action surface and the second grinding allowance structure includes a second action surface, and at least one of the first action surface and the second action surface is a plane or a curved surface.
In an embodiment, the first action surface is a curved surface that is curved toward a direction approaching the base plane, and the second action surface is a curved surface that is curved toward a direction away from the base plane.
In an embodiment, a cross-section plane perpendicular to the base plane of each tooth forms a first line segment with the first action surface of the first grinding allowance structure and forms a second line segment with the second action surface of the second grinding allowance structure. The first and second line segments can be obtained by an equation as following:
where u is the line segment parameter, ue is the line segment parameter that is the closest to a root section of a tooth, uf is the line segment parameter that is the closest to a opening section of a tooth, ai is the variable coefficient for the y-component of the line segment, q is the given coefficient of the equation, d is a symbol for defining the line segment, d=1 for the first line segment and d=2 for the second line segment.
In an embodiment, before constructing the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material for the gear skiving cutter, a planned grinding allowance for each tooth section of the gear workpiece is determined in advance, thereby a cutting edge profile of the rake plane on each cut tooth can be derived in reverse from the planned grinding allowance, and the first grinding allowance structure and the second grinding allowance structure of each tooth structure on the cutter manufacturing tool can be modified by the cutting edge profile.
In an embodiment, by constructing an imaginary helical gear that is conjugated with the gear workpiece, a plurality of first intersecting points between the imaginary helical gear and the cutting edge profile are found, and a plurality of second intersecting points between a normal plane of the imaginary helical gear and a plurality of helix curves passing through the plurality of first intersecting points on the imaginary helical gear are found, and then a grinding allowance corresponding to the second intersecting points can be obtained to determine the variable coefficients corresponding a, to the first line segment and the second line segments for modifying the first grinding allowance structure and the second grinding allowance.
In an embodiment, the relative motion coordinate system includes a first coordinate system and a second coordinate system, the cutter manufacturing tool moves based on the first coordinate system and the base material of the gear skiving cutter moves based on the second coordinate system, and movements of the cutter manufacturing tool is mapped to movements of the base material by using a coordinate transformation matrix, thereby motion trajectories and meshing states of the cutter manufacturing tool relative to the base material can be simulated to obtain the outer contour of the plurality of cut teeth.
In an embodiment, the cutter manufacturing tool is moving linearly along a first axis in the first coordinate system and the base material of the gear skiving cutter is rotating around a second axis in the second coordinate system; the first axis is not parallel to the second axis.
Furthermore, the present invention includes a gear skiving cutter made by the designing method described above; the gear skiving cutter corresponds to center axis and includes a first side, a second side and a plurality of cut teeth. The second side is arranged correspondingly to the first side. Each of the cut teeth has a rake plane near the first side and an outer contour arranged between the first side and second side. Wherein the center axis is not perpendicular to the rake plane, so that the rake plane forms a rake angle and a side edge angle with respect to a cross-section plane perpendicular to the center axis, and the outer contour is not parallel to the center axis, so that the outer contour forms a relief angle and a side clearance angle with respect to the center axis.
In an embodiment, the outer contour of each cut tooth is tapered as it extends away from the rake plane.
In order to fully comprehend the objectives, features and efficacy of the present invention, a detailed description is described by the following substantial embodiments in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. The description is as below.
The description of unit, element and component in the present invention uses “one”, “a”, or “an”. The way mentioned above is for convenience, and for general meaning of the category of the present invention. Therefore, the description should be understood as “include one”, “at least one”, and include the singular and plural forms at the same time unless obvious meaning.
The description of ordinal numbers for elements or components in the present invention are mainly for similar parts or structures and do not indicate any order in sequence in time or space arrangement. Under certain conditions or combinations, the elements or components described with ordinal numbers are interchangeable within the scopes of the present invention.
The description of comprise, have, include, contain, or another similar semantics has the non-exclusive meaning. For example, an element, structure, product, or device contain multi requirements are not limited in the list of the content, but include another inherent requirement of element, structure, product or device not explicitly listed in the content. In addition, the term “or” has an inclusive meaning instead of an exclusive one.
The designing method of the present invention is for gear skiving cutter design, and the gear skiving cutter made by the designing method is utilized to perform power skiving process on a gear workpiece in order to form a plurality of tooth sections on the gear workpiece. In the following descriptions, the designing method of the present invention is performed by computer simulations that produces a simulated profile curve of a cutter manufacturing tool in advance and then simulates to perform a surface machining on a base material of the gear skiving cutter by the simulated cutter manufacturing tool with the profile curve, so as to design the gear skiving cutter. After these procedures, another computer simulation can be performed to have the simulated gear skiving cutter performing power skiving on a gear workpiece to be formed according to the aforementioned simulation results or the simulated gear skiving cutter can be produced into a real gear skiving cutter according to the aforementioned simulation results for further procedure of producing the gear workpiece. However, the present invention is not limited thereto. For example, a real cutter manufacturing tool can be manufactured according to the present invention to perform the surface machining on a base material for the gear skiving cutter, so as to manufacture the gear skiving cutter for real.
Referring to
Step S1: constructing a cutter manufacturing tool and a base material for the gear skiving cutter. The cutter manufacturing tool includes a plurality of tooth structures. A center of each tooth structure corresponds to a base plane and each tooth structure includes a first side portion and a second side portion opposite to the first side portion. The first side portion includes a first grinding allowance structure raised toward the base plane and the second side portion includes a second grinding allowance structure raised toward the base plane; wherein the first grinding allowance structure is different from the second grinding allowance structure, so that each tooth structure forms an asymmetrical structure based on the base plane.
First, before designing the gear skiving cutter, the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material for the gear skiving cutter need to be constructed. The gear skiving cutter is formed by having the cutter manufacturing tool (or a cutting tool having a conjugate relationship with the cutter manufacturing tool) perform the surface machining on the base material.
As shown in
In the following, only the appearance of a single tooth structure 120 among the plurality of tooth structures 120 will be described in detail, and the appearance of the single tooth structure 120 can be analogized to other tooth structures 120. As shown in
Each of the tooth structures 120 includes a first side portion 121, a second side portion 122 opposite to the first side portion 121, a root section 123 and a opening end 124. The first side portion 121 and the second side portion 122 are arranged between the root section 123 and the opening end 124, and the first side portion 121 and the second side portion 122 are located on two sides of the reference plane P respectively. In an embodiment, taking the side of the tooth structure 120 having the first side portion 121 as an example, the root portion 123 of the tooth structure 120 corresponds to the line segment a-b and the line segment b-c, the first side portion 121 of the tooth structure 120 corresponds to the line segment c-d, line segment d-e, line segment e-f and line segment f-g, and the opening end 124 of the tooth structure 120 corresponds to the line segment g-h; and the other side of the tooth structure 120 having the second side portion 122 can also adopt a similar line segment distinction. The width of each tooth structure 120 tapers from the opening end 124 to the root portion 123 to form a tooth profile. In design, the first side portion 121 of the tooth structure 120 forms a first grinding allowance structure 1211 raised toward the base plane P and the second side portion 122 forms a second grinding allowance structure 1221 raised toward the base plane P, so as to make the tooth structure 120 form the profile similar to that of a knob tooth. In the present invention, the first grinding allowance structure 1211 is different from the second grinding allowance structure 1221. Accordingly, even though the first side portion 121 and the second side portion 122 of the tooth structure 120 have similar contours, the tooth structure 120 still forms an asymmetric structure based on the base plane P due to the structural differences between the first grinding allowance structure 1211 and the second grinding allowance structure 1221.
In an embodiment, the line segments a-b, c-d, d-e and f-g are straight lines, while the line segments b-c and g-h are arc lines, but the present invention is not limited to. Each aforementioned line segment can vary depending on needs. Furthermore, the line segment e-f can be a straight line or a curved line depending on requirements.
In terms of structural design, a first modification height of the first grinding allowance structure 1211 is different from a second modification height of the second grinding allowance structure 1221. As shown in
For example, in this embodiment, an average value of the first modified height of the first grinding allowance structure 1211 is less than an average value of the second modified height of the second grinding allowance structure 1221, but the present invention is not limited thereto. The value of the first modified height of the first grinding allowance structure 1211 and the second modified height of the second grinding allowance structure 1221 can be exchanged. Accordingly, the two sides of each tooth structure 120 of the cutting manufacturing tool 100 used in the present invention correspond to different grinding allowances by the first allowance structure 1211 and the second allowance structure 1221 with different modification heights, so as to facilitate the subsequent design and forming of the gear skiving cutter. A gear with pre-determined grinding allowance on both sides of each gear tooth can be processed by using the formed gear skiving cutter. The grinding allowance on either side of each gear tooth can be kept uniform, and the grinding allowance on both sides of each gear tooth can be almost the same.
The first action surface 1211a of the first allowance structure 1211 and the second cutting surface 1221a of the second allowance structure 1221 can be obtained by calculating equations. As shown in
where n represents any point between point e and point fin the line segment, u is the line segment parameter, ue is the line segment parameter that is the closest to the root portion 123 (such as point e), uf is the line segment parameter that is the closest to the opening end 124 (such as point f), ai is the variable coefficient for the y-component of the line segment, q is the given coefficient of the equations, and d is a symbol for defining the line segment. In the above equations, d=1 corresponds to the first line segment, and d=2 corresponds to the second line segment. As the parameter design of the first line segment or the second line segment corresponding to the tooth structure 120 is different (that is, the designs of the first action surface 1211a of the first grinding allowance structure 1211 and the second action surface 1221a of the second grinding allowance structure 1221 are different), the value of ue, uf and ai would change accordingly.
In the present invention, the first action surface 1211a of the first grinding allowance structure 1211 and the second action surface 1221a of the second grinding allowance structure 1221 can be different structures according to different design requirements of the gear skiving cutter to be formed. As shown in
x
n
=u (The first line segment) xn=−u (The second line segment)
y
n
=a
1
u+a
0 (The first line segment) yn=a1u+a0 (The second line segment)
Herein, the value range of the line segment parameter u corresponding to the first line segment and the second line segment and the variable coefficients a1 and a0 can be different.
Referring to
x
n
=u (The first line segment) xn=−u (The second line segment)
y
n
=a
2
u
2
+a
1
u+a
0 (The first line segment) yn=a2u2+a1u+a0 (The second line segment)
Herein, the value range of the line segment parameter u corresponding to the first line segment and the second line segment and the variable coefficients a2, a1 and a0 can be different. In addition to the aforementioned embodiments, the first line segment and the second line segment corresponding to two sides of the tooth structure can also be a linear function and a quadratic function respectively; that is, the first action surface 1211a of the first grinding allowance structure 1211 may be a plane, and the second action surface 1221a of the second grinding allowance structure 1221 may be a curved surface, but the present invention is not limited thereto.
Step S1: simulating relative movements of the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material for the gear skiving cutter based on a relative motion coordinate system, so that the plurality of tooth structures of the cutter manufacturing tool contact the base material to perform the surface processing, so as to form a plurality of cut teeth on the base material; wherein each cut tooth includes an outer contour and a rake plane formed at an end of the outer contour, and each rake plane includes a rake angle and a side edge angle.
The structural design of the gear skiving cutter constructed by the present invention will be described below. Referring to
Additionally, a planned grinding allowance for the gear workpiece and a plurality of specification parameters of the cutter manufacturing tool and the gear skiving cutter can be determined in advance before constructing the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material A, thereby the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material A can be constructed according to the planned grinding allowance and the specification parameters. Among them, the planned grinding allowance of the gear workpiece is the most important, because it would further affect the profile and the amount of the grinding allowance of the first second grinding allowance structure and the second grinding allowance structure of each tooth structure of the cutter manufacturing tool, and the outer contour of the cut teeth of the gear skiving cutter. The plurality of specification parameters include the depth, spacing and amount of the plurality of tooth structures of the cutter manufacturing tool, the module and helix angle of the gear skiving cutter and other necessary parameters, so as to produce the gear skiving cutter with the specifications required.
As shown in
Referring to
By pre-determining the value of the relief angle, the present invention is able to construct the plurality of cut teeth of the base material with corresponding specifications. Also, by pre-determining the value of the rake angle and the side edge angle, the cross-section plane corresponding to the rake plane of the cut tooth can be further determined, thereby the cutting edge profile of the rake plane can be obtained to construct the rake plane of the cut tooth with corresponding specifications.
Back to the step S2, after constructing the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material for the gear skiving cutter, in order to make the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material of the gear skiving cutter perform relative motions to perform surface processing of the base material, the relative motion coordinate system applied in the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material must be established first.
Referring to
The movements of the cutter manufacturing tool 100 based on the first coordinate system Sr(xr,yr,zr) is mapped to the movements on the transverse section of the base material based on the third coordinate system Sc(xc,yc,zc) by using coordinate transformation matrixes, so as to obtain the trajectory equations of the outer contours of the plurality of cut teeth formed by the cutter manufacturing tool 100 on the surface of the base material of the gear skiving tool 200. The aforementioned transformation matrixes are shown in the following:
wherein Mcr is the transformation matrix from the first coordinate system Sr(xr,yr,zr) to the third coordinate system Sc(xc,yc,zc), Mcs is the transformation matrix from the second coordinate system Ss(xs,ys,zs) to the third coordinate system Sc(xc,yc,zc), Msr is the transformation matrix from the first coordinate system Sr(xr,yr,zr) to the second coordinate system Ss(xs,ys,zs), φ is the rotation angle of the base material for the gear skiving cutter 200, li is the z-component of the transverse section of the base material for the gear skiving cutter 200, mn is the modulus of the base material, ζi is the profile shifted coefficient of the base material, θi is the helix angle of the cross-section of the base material.
The aforesaid trajectory equations are shown in the following:
r
c(u,φ,li)=Mcr(φ,li)rr(u), i=1˜nsc (5)
n
c(u,φ,li)=Lcr(φ,li)nr(u) (6)
wherein r, is the position vector of the base material for the gear skiving cutter 200, r, is the position vector of the cutter manufacturing tool 100, nc is the unit normal vector of the base material for the gear skiving cutter 200, nr is the unit normal vector of the cutter manufacturing tool 100, Lcr is the upper left submatrix of the first 3×3 elements in Mcr, nsc is the number of the transverse sections for the base material of the gear skiving cutter 200.
When the cutter manufacturing tool 100 contacts the base material for surface processing, a meshing equation shown in the following should be satisfied:
where r′c is the vector of the first 3 elements of the position vector rc of the base material for the gear skiving cutter 200.
and the rotation angle φ of each section of the tool in the base material of the gear skiving tool 20 can be obtained. Accordingly, the line segment parameter u of the cutter manufacturing tool 100 and the z-component li of the transverse section of the base material are substituted in the equation (7), and the rotation angle φ of each section of the base material of the gear skiving tool 20 can be obtained. Then, by substituting each set of the (u, φ, li) parameters into the trajectory equations (5) and (6), the position vector and the unit normal vector of the outer contour of each transverse section of the base material can be determined, so as to establish the contour point data of the plurality of cut teeth of the base material. Finally, a three-dimensional outer contour of the cut tooth can be formed by using the curve fitting method to combine the contour point data of each section.
In the present invention, before constructing the cutter manufacturing tool and the base material for the gear skiving cutter, a planned grinding allowance of each tooth section of the gear workpiece can be determined in advance. The cutting edge profile of the rake plane of each tool tooth of the gear skiving cutter can be derived in reverse from the planned grinding allowance, and the first grinding allowance structure and the second grinding allowance structure of each tooth structure of the cutter manufacturing tool can be modified by the cutting edge profile. Referring to
Since each intersecting point Tj corresponds to a helical curve of the imaginary helical gear Σ, a plurality of intersecting points Hj (j=0˜q) corresponding to the plurality of helical curves of the intersecting points Tj and a normal plane πn of the imaginary helical gear Σ, and a normal profile N1 on the normal plane πn crossing the intersecting points Hj can be further derived. Next, an imaginary helical gear Σ0 created by a standard rack (as cutter manufacturing tool) without grinding allowance can be constructed. The imaginary helical gear Σ0 and the previously imaginary helical gear Σ have the same normal plane πn. The imaginary helical gear Σ0 corresponds to a normal profile N2 crossing a plurality of intersecting points Dj, and the plurality of intersecting points Dj can be derived by the aforesaid transformation matrixes and meshing equations based on a plurality of points Pj. Thereby, by calculating the distance between any intersecting point Hj on the normal profile N1 and the intersecting point Dj at the corresponding position on the normal profile N2 along the normal direction of the normal profile N2, the variable coefficients ai of the first line segment and the second line segment of the cutter manufacturing tool can be derived in reverse, so as to correct the outline of the cutter manufacturing tool which can actually produce the gear workpiece 300 with planned grinding allowance Sn.
The gear skiving cutter designed by the designing method of the present invention will be simulated to performing the skiving processing for different gear workpieces to prove the gear skiving effect of the designed gear skiving cutter below. In this embodiment, the relevant specification parameters of the gear skiving cutter and the gear workpiece are shown in Table 1.
Referring to
x=u
y=6.271−2.750u, where 1.517 (mm)≤u≤3.371 (mm)
And the equations of the second line segment of the second grinding allowance structure can be obtained as follows:
x=−u
y=6.273−2.701u, where 1.545 (mm)≤u≤3.433 (mm)
Simulated skiving processing on both the internal gear and external gear are respectively performed by the simulated gear skiving cutter formed by the cutter manufacturing tool according to the present invention and by the CNC gear skiving machine. The topology of the tooth section surface can be calculated in accordance with the results shown in the left of
In an embodiment, it is assumed that the first line segment and the second line segment of the cutter manufacturing tool of the present invention are both linear functions (i.e., q=1), and the first line segment and the second line segment of another cutter manufacturing tool of the present invention are both quadratic functions (i.e., q=2). The results of the skiving processing on an internal gear performed by different gear skiving cutters designed by different cutter manufacturing tools can be compared. In this embodiment, the relevant specification parameters of the gear workpiece and the gear skiving cutters are the same as the previous embodiments, except the planned grinding allowance of the gear workpiece is adjusted to 100 μm, the tooth number of the gear workpiece is adjusted to 60 and the helix angle is adjusted to 20°. After substituting the above parameters into the relevant equations for calculation, the equations of the first line segment of the first grinding allowance structure and the second line segment of the second grinding allowance structure corresponding to different cutter manufacturing tools are shown in Table 2.
Referring to
Referring to
The present invention is disclosed by the preferred embodiments in the aforementioned description; however, it is contemplated for one skilled at the art that the embodiments are applied only for an illustration of the present invention rather than are interpreted as a limitation for the scope of the present invention. It should be noted that the various substantial alternation or replacement equivalent to these embodiments shall be considered as being covered within the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention shall be defined by the claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
111120945 | Jun 2022 | TW | national |