Russian school of the theory and geometry of gearing: Its origin and golden period (1935 --1975)

During the second half of the twentieth century, Soviet scientists were among the world leaders in the theory and geometry of gearing or the theoretical fundamentals of designing gears and gear-cutting tools. The authors of the current paper review works related to the development of the theory of gearing (TG) written in Russian from the mid-1930s to the present. Overall, the review covers more than 400 publications of nearly 200 authors (among more than 1000 studied works). This review involves some works on gear strength and accuracy to attract more experts. This paper presents a short list of works from the seventeenth century to the nineteenth century and discusses the basic concepts of the TG. This paper also includes a review of more than 160 papers in Russian for the period of 1935-1975, which is the "golden age" of the TG. The main features and achievements during this period are also considered. The distinctive feature of this review is the use of diagrams that visually present TG experts and the dates and themes of their published works. The diagrams also show the following aspects: 1) The most popular and important themes in a specific period, 2) the most important publications on the themes of interest to readers, and 3) the direction of the works and scope of interests of every researcher.