An Innovative Way of Designing Gear Hobbing Processes

In order to shorten production time, it is wise to use simulation tools at every step of product development. Simulation tools can help avoid iterative steps based on trials and minimize development time—as well as costs. Along with existing WZL software packages (Refs. 1–2), a software simulation tool for gear hobbing has been in development for several years—i.e., PARTApro. Gear hobbing is one of the major manufacturing processes in the industry; indeed, nearly every softmachined gear made is hobbed. It therefore makes sense that—especially for a manufacturing technology with such high importance—a manufacturing simulation is needed for the reasons mentioned above, and due to the complexity of the process design. The complexity results from numerous, mostly non-linear, interacting factors. The tool costs-per-piece are also determined by the geometrical tool design. The parameters for a given machining operation require a specific design in order to meet operational requirements (machining time and costs). What’s more, a manufacturing simulation is needed to enable easy and fast process design. The approach includes a penetration calculation in order to identify the chip geometries. But knowing only the chip geometry is insufficient for manufacturing simulations; of equal importance are characteristics and/or other values with a technological or economic background relative to a specific process.