Prediction and optimization of hobbing parameters for minimizing energy consumption and gear geometric deviations

Improving gear precision and achieving green sustainability in gear machining are two important aspects of the gear manufacturing process. However, to achieve these two goals simultaneously, it may be necessary to make trade-offs when selecting the gear processing parameters. In this work, both energy consumption and gear geometric deviations were considered simultaneously to optimize the hobbing parameters. The relationships between the hobbing parameters, energy consumption, and gear geometric deviations were modeled using the response surface method (RSM). The statistical significance of the model was tested using analysis of variance (ANOVA). An improved multi-objective particle swarm optimization (IMOPSO) was then performed to solve optimization problems that involved multiple and conflicting objectives in the hobbing process. The results obtained indicate that both the energy consumption (E) and the gear geometric deviations are parameter-dependent. The feed rate (f) and the spindle speed (n) have opposing effects on both energy consumption E and the gear geometric deviations. The optimum hobbing parameter sets obtained from the calculated Pareto frontier can provide a feasible solution for manufacturers to solve the trade-off problems that occur in the hobbing process, and the experimental results confirmed the effectiveness of the IMOPSO approach.