Tooth surface modification method of face-milling spiral bevel gears with high contact ratio based on cutter blade profile correction

To avoid tooth edge contact of high contact ratio spiral bevel gear under misalignment or heavy load, a tooth surface modification method based on cutter blade profile correction is proposed. Generally, an arc blade is used to substitute the straight blade of cutter-head to get the ideal tooth surface. Firstly of all, the mathematical model of the cutter blade profile is established. Secondly, the computational method of the unknown parameters used to determine the cutter blade profile is presented in details. Thirdly, the modified tooth surfaces of pinion and gear are deduced based on the principle of gear mesh and the theory of differential geometry. Finally, a numerical example is carried out to verify the effectiveness of the tooth surface modification method with the method of finite element analysis (FEA) and tooth contact analysis (TCA). The TCA result shows that the tooth surface modification method can effectively reduce tooth edge contact without affecting the location of contact path. It can also ensure the symmetry of geometric transmission error curve. The results of the FEA show that the tooth surface modification method can not only effectively avoid tooth edge contact but can also reduce the maximum contact stress on the tooth surface. It can also reduce the adverse effects of misalignment.