Influencing factors of effective tooth depth in the cylindrical gear rolling process with axial infeed

Working tooth depth is the key factor of affecting the transmission of motion and power for gear pair, which is closely related to the tooth depth of gear. To reveal the growth law of the formed teeth in the cylindrical gear rolling process with axial infeed, a sliding ratio model and contact stress model between tooth profiles of rolling die and workpiece were firstly derived based on the characteristics of the gear pair and rolling process with axial infeed. Rolling of cylindrical gears with module of 1.75 mm and pressure angle of 20° was then taken as an example to verify the above-mentioned models, and the influence of the working pressure angle, number of teeth of workpiece, and rotational speed of rolling dies on the effective tooth depth of the workpiece were analyzed by using finite element simulations (FES) and experiments. The results show that the effective tooth depth of the formed workpiece increases with the increases of the addendum modification coefficient of the rolling dies, number of teeth of the workpiece, and rotational speed of the rolling dies. The sliding ratio and contact stress decrease with the increases of the addendum modification coefficient of the rolling dies and number of teeth of the workpiece. Moreover, the effective tooth depth of the workpiece formed by the rolling dies with addendum modification coefficient of 1 is increased by 7.41% compared to that formed by the rolling dies with addendum modification coefficient of the 0.