Numerical approach for determination of rough-cutting machine-tool settings for fixed-setting face-milled spiral bevel gears

Spiral bevel gear drives manufactured by the so-called five-cut method are designed to achieve the best conditions of meshing and contact since convex and concave pinion tooth surfaces are generated independently, allowing the achievement of optimized contact patterns and favorable functions of transmission errors for both flanks of gear tooth surfaces, and reducing with it noise and vibration and increasing the endurance of the gear drive. As part of the process of manufacturing, roughing of both flanks of the pinion tooth surfaces is needed. In this paper, a novel numerical approach for determination of machine-tool settings for roughing of the pinion by using a spread-blade face-milling cutter is proposed. The main purpose of the proposed procedure is the reduction of the manufacturing cycle time and maximizing the material cut during the rough-cutting operation, without damaging the to-be-finished surfaces. The procedure is based on the resolution of a constrained optimization problem. A numerical example shows the applicability of the developed numerical approach. The obtained numerical results disclose that acceptable rough-cut geometries are possible to be managed during the first iterations as trade-off solutions.