A generic and theoretical approach to programming and post-processing for hypoid gear machining on multi-axis CNC face-milling machines

Hypoid gears are machined on multi-axis computer numerical control (CNC) face-milling machines, and parameters of a cutter system and machine settings are calculated for a specific gear design. The existing hypoid gear machining methods use a simplified blade model of cutting systems, resulting in large errors in the machined gears. Moreover, special CAD/CAM software programs are used to design and calculate the machine settings of hypoid gears. These software programs are developed by the OEMs for particular machine tools, and it cannot be used for hypoid gear machine tools of different sizes and configurations. To solve these problems, this research proposes a generic approach to CNC programming and post-processing for gear face milling, considering the accurate blade model in the cutter system. The main contributions of this part include (1) a new mathematical model to calculate the cutter system location and orientation and (2) a generic post-processing method to establish the machine kinematics chain and to compute the coordinates of the machine axes for the face-milling process. This approach provides a general and accurate methodology for the face milling of hypoid gears on machine tools of varying configurations and can be directly applied to the hypoid gear manufacturing for better quality.