Remanufacturing the Pinion: An Application of a New Design Method for Spiral Bevel Gears

Abstract

Damages of a large spiral bevel gear drive as used in heavy industry typically affect the pinion. Even if the gear still could be used, the complete pair has to be changed. This leads to long off times, high costs, and unnecessary waste. This paper applies a recent design technology for spiral bevel gears to the production of a replacement pinion for the sake of energy saving, reduction of costs and off times, and for the realization of green engineering. The process involves the following steps. First, the real tool surface of the gear is measured by a CMM. Based on the new design method, the tooth surface of the mating pinion is derived from this discrete point cloud. In order to improve the meshing performance, the resulting surface of the pinion is modified in the third step. Finally, the pinion is produced on a CNC machining center. In contrast to other approaches, none of these steps needs the parameters of the special machine tool defining the original gear pair. It is worth noting that our technology can also be profitable to gain more freedom in the design of new gear pairs.