Face gear drives: Nominal contact stress calculation for flank load carrying capacity evaluation

Face gear drives are angular gear units in which an involute pinion meshes with a face gear wheel. Spur and helical face gear drives are possible with or without center offset. Face gear drives can be manufactured on conventional gear cutting machines. Furthermore, the pinion is free to move axially and such displacements have no effect on the contact pattern. This makes them a promising gearing for various applications. Due to the lack of established calculation standards, the design of face gear drives is a challenge and often results in oversizing or early failures. This may also be why face gear drives have not yet established themselves in power transmissions. Instead, the main application can be found in kinematic/auxiliary drives. In this paper, two methods for contact stress calculation for face gear drives with any configuration between helix angle and center offset are developed. Calculation examples compare the two methods and confirm the applicability. Overall, this study provides a new standard-capable easy-to-program calculation method for the contact stress based on existing standards for cylindrical gears.