A Methodology for Longitudinal Tooth Flank Crowning of the Helical Gear on a CNC Honing Machine

The gear honing is the most economical way for hard finishing an involute helical gear after hobbing and heat treatment or after shaving and heat treatment. The gear honing can also be applied to the modification of gear tooth surfaces to compensate for the distortions that occur during heat treatment process. Most published papers on the technology of gear honing describes on the principle of generated gear surface. However, the longitudinal tooth flank crowning of a helical gear with honing has not been investigated yet. Therefore, in this paper, we proposed a novel method for longitudinal tooth flank crowning of work gear surfaces by setting a crossed angle between the honing cutter and work gear axes as a linear function of honing cutter's traverse feed in the honing process. A mathematical model for the tooth profile of work gear honed by a standard honing cutter is also established. Three numeral examples are presented to illustrate and verify the merits of the proposed gear honing method in longitudinal crowning.