Method of Processing and an Analysis of Meshing and Contact of Circular Arc Tooth Trace Cylindrical Gears

This paper presents the investigation into the tooth profile features, meshing characteristics and the principle of forming circular arc tooth race cylindrical gears (CATT gears). Based on the meshing theory of the curvilinear gear, tooth surface equations and meshing line equations of the gears and rack shave been established. The graphical analysis of these equations shows meshing performances. The results reveal that an ideal CATT gear can mesh with each other at a line contact and the rack cutter can machine an ideal CATT gear by translational motion. A planetary gear train is proposed to be used as processing device. The device consists of one or several gear pairs and it can be fixed to multiple tools. The new device can machine ideal tooth profiles and the teeth have the same thickness in the circumferential direction. The processing results show that the device can also adjust the forming radius of the tooth trace without grades and that it performs continuous cutting without introducing imbalance into the mechanism.