Closed-loop topology modification of gear tooth flanks considering both dressing and honing processes for internal-meshing gear honing

Gear machining accuracy is significantly affected by the precise motion and geometry of honing wheels in the gear honing process, wherein dressing is critical to ensure the proper profile of honing wheels. Although dressing constitutes an essential process that has long been utilized to finalize work gear, it has rarely been investigated in prior research. This study proposes a closed-loop topology modification method for gear honing, considering both dressing and honing processes. A dressing gear is utilized to re-shape the honing wheel profile, which is then applied to finalize the work gear. Mathematical models of the dressing and the honing are established for a CNC internal-meshing gear honing machine. The model also applies additional motion functions of dressing and honing axes. The sensitivity matrix method combined with the Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm determines the additional motions according to the expected tooth modification. The effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method are verified by carrying out double-crowning as the gear tooth modification in numerical instances.