Grinding of bevel and hypoid gears creates on the surface a roughness structure with lines that are parallel to the root. Imperfections of those lines often repeat on preceding teeth, leading to a magnification of the amplitudes above the tooth mesh frequency and their higher harmonics. This phenomenon is known in grinding and has led in many cylindrical gear applications to an additional finishing operation (honing). Until now, in bevel and hypoid gear grinding, a short time lapping of pinion and gear after the grinding operation, is the only possibility to change the surface structure from the strongly root line oriented roughness lines to a diffuse structure.

Ground bevel and hypoid gears have a designed motion error that defines parts of their NVH behavior. The surface structure is defined by the hard finishing process.

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At first sight the appearance of 5-axis milling for bevel gears opens new possibilities in flank form design. Since in comparison to existing machining methods applying cutter heads no kinematic restrictions exist for 5-axis milling technology, any flank form can be machined. Nevertheless the basic requirements for bevel gears did not change. Specifications and functional requirements like load carrying capacity and running behavior are still increasing demands for design and manufacturing. This paper describes the demands for gear design and gives an overview about different design principles in the context of the surrounding periphery of the gear set.