Geometric design of a face gear drive with a helical pinion

The application of face gear drives, which have been used recently instead of bevel and hypoid gears for helicopter transmission, has resulted in renewed interest in such drives. A helical pinion must be utilized to change the composition of the contact surface freely. In this work, the problem of where to place the pinion with respect to a gear is solved by defining a reference point. The effect of the helix angle on the composition of the surface contact lines is clarified. A geometric design method that recognizes meshing singularity is proposed. Two unique lines on which specific sliding becomes infinite are regarded as design indexes. Results show that the contribution of the surface contact lines changes significantly depending on the helix angle, and the offset distances influence the effective tooth width of the gear.