Mathematical definition and computerized modeling of spherical involute and octoidal bevel gears generated by crown gear

The involute profile is the most commonly used tooth profile for cylindrical gears. However, its counterpart for bevel gears is not commonly used because its generation is not compatible with the use of easy-to-manufacture cutting tools and market-oriented generation methods. Nowadays, with additive manufacturing technology growing across industries to manufacture parts and full-scale products, the spherical involute profile deserves to be given the possibility to become the reference profile for bevel gears generated by additive manufacturing, forging or plastic molding. In this work, both the spherical, involute and the octoidal form systems for bevel gears are mathematically defined. The geometry of their respective crown-gears for generation is derived and the computerized modeling of the geometries of the generated bevel gears presented. The comparison between the obtained gear tooth geometries is performed from the point of view of the obtained geometric deviations, their behavior to the change of the shaft angle and the evolution of contact and bending stresses for different values of torque applied to the pinion. The results showed that the spherical involute profile can handle better with the changes in the shaft angle, although the octoidal profile presents lower contact and bending stresses. (C) 2016 International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.