In this issue of Gear Technology, we are focusing on using computers to their greatest advantage in gear design and manufacturing. In a sense, that's old news. It's a cliche to suggest that computers make our work life easier and more productive. No company that wishes to remain competitive in today's global manufacturing environment can afford to be without computers in all their manifestations. We need them in the office; we need them next to our desks in place of drafting boards; we need them on the shop floor.

Most gear cutting shops have shelves full of expensive tooling used in the past for cutting gears which are no longer in production. It is anticipated that these cutters will be used again in the future. While this may take place if the cutters are "standard," and the gears to be cut are "standard," most of the design work done today involves high pressure angle gears for strength, or designs for high contact ratio to reduce noise. The re-use of a cutter under these conditions requires a tedious mathematical analysis, which is no problem if a computer with the right software is available. This article describes a computerized graphical display which provides a quick analysis of the potential for the re-use of shaving cutters stored in a computer file.

The aim of this article is to show a practical procedure for designing optimum helical gears. The optimization procedure is adapted to technical limitations, and it is focused on real-world cases. To emphasize the applicability of the procedure presented here, the most common optimization techniques are described. Afterwards, a description of some of the functions to be optimized is given, limiting parameters and restrictions are defined, and, finally, a graphic method is described.

One of our readers in England has asked for our help in locating published technical data and information on the design, manufacture, and inspection of camshaft gears. Although millions of these gears have been made and are in constant use, we are not aware of any formal material having been published. We would be pleased to hear from anyone who had knowledge of such information.

Complete calendar for September/October 1992

The availability of technical software has grown rapidly in the last few years because of the proliferation of personal computers. It is rare to find an organization doing technical work that does not have some type of computer. For gear designers and manufacturers, proper use of the computer can mean the difference between meeting the competition or falling behind in today's business world. The right answers the first time are essential if cost-effective design and fabrication are to be realized. The computer is capable of optimizing a design by methods that are too laborious to undertake using hard calculations. As speeds continue to climb and more power per pound is required from gear systems, it no longer is possible to design "on the safe side" by using larger service factors. At high rotational speeds a larger gear set may well have less capacity because of dynamic effects. The gear engineer of today must consider the entire gear box or even the entire rotating system as his or her domain.

This article discusses an application driven approach to the computer-aided sizing of spur gear teeth. The methodology is bases on the index of tooth loading and environment of application of the gear. It employs handbook knowledge and empirical information to facilitate the design process for a novice. Results show that the approach is in agreement with the textbook data. However, this technique requires less expert knowledge to arrive at the conclusion. The methodology has been successfully implemented as a gear tooth sizing module of a parallel axis gear drive expert system.

Computer programs have been developed to completely design spur and helical gear shaper cutters starting from the specifications of the gear to be cut and the type of gear shaper to be used. The programs generate the working drawing of the cutter and, through the use of a precision plotter, generate enlarge scaled layouts of the gear as produced by the cutter and any other layouts needed for its manufacture.

The art of gear hobbing has advanced dramatically since the development and introduction of unique machine and tool features such as no backlash, super rigidity, automatic loading of cutting tools, CNC controls, additional machine power and improved cutter materials and coatings. It is essential to utilize all these features to run the machine economically.

Helical gears can drive either nonparallel or parallel shafts. When these gears are used with nonparallel shafts, the contact is a point, and the design and manufacturing requirements are less critical than for gears driving parallel shafts.