Design, Meshing Characteristics and Stress Analysis of Cylindrical Gears with Curvilinear Tooth Profile

Curvilinear tooth gears are commonly produced on a face milling cutter and a hob cutter. However, this paper proposes a kind of curvilinear tooth gear which is processed by a parallel linkage with a single blade cutter. For the purpose of identifying the meshing and contact characteristics of curvilinear tooth gears, the paper covers the following: (i) equations of tooth surfaces are deduced from the meshing theory, and a parameterized geometric model is developed by applying computer graphics; (ii) an investigation into meshing characteristics for an ideal assembly condition is performed, and an instantaneous contact curve is obtained from the developed tooth contact algorithm; (iii) based on the application of the finite element method, the evolution of contact and bending stresses during the cycle of meshing and between different arc radii of the curvilinear tooth is illustrated by numerical examples. The result shows that curvilinear tooth gear drives possess a higher contact ratio, severe contact stresses on the top edge of the tooth, and lower contact and bending stresses between appropriate arc radii, hence they may replace spur gears in the future.