Fundamental Research On The Design And Manufacture Of The Theoretical Error-Free Slice Cutter

As an advanced manufacturing method for cylindrical gear, the gear slicing haswide application prospects. The design and manufacture theory of the slice cutterplays the most important rule on promoting the development of the gear slicingtechnology. In the past researches, the slice cutter was designed based on the designmethod of the pinion cutter. This cutter has theoretical edge shape error and theinterference between the cutter and machined gear often happens in the gear slicing,and this reduces the gear machining accuracy. To solve the problem mentioned above,a set of design and manufacture methods of the theoretical error-free slice cutter arepresented. In this paper, the following researches and contributions have been made:(1) Based on the former research results, the concept and principle of gear slicing aregiven. On this basis, the tooth surface generation process in gear slicing isanalyzed. Then, the tooth surface model is built, and the design requirements ofthe appropriate slice cutter for the gear slicing technology are presented.(2) According to the slice cutter design requirements, a structure design scheme ofthe theoretical error-free slice cutter is presented. The rake face, top flank faceand major flank face are designed as sphere, cone and surface L-C respectively.Comparing with the slice cutter designed based on the design method of thepinion cutter, the proposed structure of the slice cutter does not have theoreticaledge shape error and it has a larger relief angle which can avoid the interferenceeffectively in gear slicing.(3) An optimization method of the cutter parameters and machining parameters ispresented. Taking avoiding the interference between the cutter and machinedgear and meeting the accuracy requirements of the gear as goals, the parametersoptimization model is built. Based on this model, the cutter parameters andmachining parameters can be optimized by means of the orthogonal experiment.The calculation example shows that the appropriate parameter combination forthe gear slicing can quickly be obtained by the proposed optimization method.(4) Analyzing the geometrical characteristics of the major flank face, a grindingmethod of the major flank face is presented. In grinding process, the tangentplane, normal vector of the grinding wheel should coincide with those of themajor flank face respectively. The machining model of the major flank face is established to plan the grinding point path, and to check and avoid theinterference between the cutter and grinding wheel. Taking a slice cuttermachining as an example, the major flank face is grinded based on the abovemethod, and its maximum machining error and surface roughness are0.0095mmand Ra0.3respectively. This result meets the major flank face accuracyrequirements that the machining error and surface roughness of the major flankface should be less than0.01mm and Ra0.4respectively. This machiningexample shows that the proposed grinding method is valid for the machining ofthe major flank face.(5) Taking a typical gear slicing as an example, the validity of the presented designand manufacture methods of the theoretical error-free slice cutter in this paper isverified. Meanwhile, a synchronous motion control scheme is presented. Themachining example indicates that the gear comprehensive accuracy reachesGB/T Class6. The result meets the gear accuracy requirement of GB/T Class7,and after two times of cutter grinding, the machining accuracy can also meet thegear accuracy requirement of GB/T Class7. This result shows that the mentionedcutter design method, parameters optimization method, grinding method for themajor flank face and synchronous motion control method in this paper are validfor the gear slicing technology.The above researches and contributions lay a theoretical foundation for thedesign and manufacture of the theoretical error-free slice cutter, and they have greatsignificances on promoting the development of the gear slicing technology.