Design and Analysis of a New Magnetorheological Worm Gear Type Finishing Process for Improved Productivity

Precise gear tooth profiles are crucial for high-quality gear manufacturing, significantly impacting industry standards and product performance. Precisely finished gears are essential in high-precision applications such as laboratory equipment, aircraft, and defense systems. The precise shape of the gear tooth has a direct impact on its performance. Hardened EN-24 material finds significant utility in various industrial applications, particularly in the manufacturing of gears such as spur, bevel, and helical gears. The present study employs an innovative magnetorheological worm gear profile finishing (MRWGPF) tool to surface-finish a 14-tooth EN-24 spur gear. The newly designed MRWGPF tool is capable of finishing all the teeth's profiles of spur gears in a continuous cycle, minimizing the overall finishing time required. Surface morphology analysis compares the initial and finished surface quality of the EN-24 gear profile. The current magnetorheological finishing procedure successfully removes the grinding marks and surface defects from the initial surface of the gear with a minimum time. After 60 min of finishing with the new MRWGPF tool, the roughness parameters (Ra, Rq, and Rz) decrease from 0.97, 1.20, and 5.3 mu m to 0.07, 0.10, and 0.6 mu m, respectively, across all 14 gear teeth. This improvement in finishing with improved productivity can enhance the gear profile's durability and performance. The enhancement in the gear profile's performance can further potentially reduce the noise, vibrations, wear rate, friction, and operating temperature at high speeds.