In the process of developing gear trains, it occasionally occurs that the tip of one gear will drag in the fillet of the mating gear. The first reaction may be to assume that the outside diameter of the gear is too large. This article is intended to show that although the gear dimensions follow AGMA guidelines, if the gear is cut with a shaper, the cutting process may not provide sufficient relief in the fillet area and be the cause of the interference.

The paper describes a procedure for the design of internal gear pairs, which is a generalized form of the long and short addendum system. The procedure includes checks for interference, tip interference, undercutting, tip interference during cutting, and rubbing during cutting.