An exact system of generation for face-milled hypoid gears with uniform depth taper: Application to hypoid gear drives with high gear ratio

An exact system of generation for face-milled hypoid gears with uniform depth taper is proposed. This system defines the location of pinion and wheel, their respective cutting (or grinding) cutters, and the relations of motion in their respective reference coordinate systems attached to the cutting machine. As a result, the grinding cutter geometric parameters and basic machine-tool settings are analytically determined without the need of any further optimization process. The appropriate selection of the mean cutter radius is addressed following the recommendations of the Information Sheet AGMA ISO 22849-A12. The tooth contact analysis of the gear drive shows a localized bearing contact with no unloaded transmission errors in the absence of misalignments. A lower sensitivity of the contact pattern to errors of alignment is observed as the mean cutter radius is decreased. Stress analysis shows that only the application of a tip relief is needed to avoid edge contacts at the tip of the gear tooth surfaces, being the point width of the cutting blades a key parameter to balance bending stresses in the pinion and the wheel.