Manufacturing Technology and Cutter Design of Power Skiving for Internal Gears and Circular Splines

This research project is a two-year project. A power-skiving cutter resembles a helical shaper cutter. In the first year, the manufacturing process of internal gears by power skiving is investigated, considering the practical design considerations of cutter design and regrindable cutter. First, a generating wheel is used to generate the power-skiving cutter. Then the cutter is applied to generate internal spur gear and internal helical gear by power skiving method. The surface topology of the generated internal gear tooth profiles will be calculated and an optimization algorithm will be integrated with the tooth profile program to minimize the surface topology error to an acceptable precision grade, i.e. DIN 7. Therefore the optimum profile of the generating grinding wheel will be achieved, and the corresponding cutting edge profile of the power-skiving cutter will also be obtained. Besides, the regrindable cutter rake-face will also be an studied and the effect of the reground rake face on the precision of the internal gear tooth profile will also be investigated. An optimization algorithm will be utilized to determine the optimum compensation angle of the workpiece during power skiving process to minimize the effect on the tooth profile precision resulting from cutter regrading. Therefore, a complete design process of producing internal gear by power skiving will be accomplished and presented.In the second year, on the basis of our recent research on the harmonic drive, the production of circular spline of the harmonic drive will be studied by using power skiving. Two types of circular splines, involute and double-circular-arc, will be studied and their respective cutter design will be designed. Moreover, the regrindable power-skiving cutter for the circular splines will also be investigated and proposed. Finally, the circular splines of harmonic drives can be manufactured on a 6-axis CNC power skiving machine with specific cutter designs.This research project is believed to be beneficial for the domestic gear manufacturing industry as well as harmonic drive production in Taiwan.