Reverse engineering of a toothed gear

Abstract

With the rapid development of modern industry, the need for spare parts has increased. Most mechanical systems have transmission components which are composed of toothed gears. In most cases, the manufacturer of the spare part does not exist on the market and the need to reproduce the failed part needs to be met. Usually, toothed gears are obtained using special cutting machines, like Gleason, Lees-Bradner, and Pfauter. To be able to reproduce the part by using a common manufacturing process, the current paper presents a RE method for obtaining the 3D geometry of a toothed gear in the scope of machining the part using a CNC 3-axis mill. CAD software and 3D scanning technology is used to recreate the gear’s 3D model and ensure accurate dimensions for the gear teeth, including tooth spacing, depth, and angle.

Keywords

• reverse engineering
• computer aided design
• toothed gear insert
• 3D scanning
• point clouds