Gear design has long been a "black art." The gear shop's modern alchemists often have to solve problems with a combination of knowledge, experience and luck. In many cases, trial and error are the only effective way to design gears. While years of experience have produced standard gearsets that work well for most situations, today's requirements for quieter, more accurate and more durable gears often force manufacturers to look for alternative designs.

It used to be that a shop with hustle and plenty of big, fast machines could thrive using a manual system. But no more. Today's economic environment requires more and more in the way of topnotch service and quick turnaround - which frequently means a completely integrated shop floor control system.

This section will deal with the use of gear inspection for diagnostic purposes rather than quality determination. The proper evaluation of various characteristics in the data can be useful for the solution of quality problems. It is important to sort out whether the problem is coming from the machine, tooling and/or cutters, blanks, etc. An article by Robert Moderow in the May/June 1985 issue of Gear Technology is very useful for this purpose.

Quality gear inspection means doing the "right" inspections "right." A lot of time and money can be spent doing the wrong types of inspections related to function and doing them incorrectly. As we will discover later, such things as runout can creep into the manufacturing and inspection process and completely ruin any piece of data that is taken. this is one of the most important problems to control for quality inspection.

Question: In the January/February issue of your magazine, we came across the term "electronic gearbox." We have seen this term used elsewhere as well. We understand that this EGB eliminates the change gear in the transmission line, but not how exactly this is done. Could you explain in more detail?

In some gear dynamic models, the effect of tooth flexibility is ignored when the model determines which pairs of teeth are in contact. Deflection of loaded teeth is not introduced until the equations of motion are solved. This means the zone of tooth contact and average tooth meshing stiffness are underestimated, and the individual tooth load is overstated, especially for heavily loaded gears. This article compares the static transmission error and dynamic load of heavily loaded, low-contact-ratio spur gears when the effect of tooth flexibility has been considered and when it has been ignored. Neglecting the effect yields an underestimate of resonance speeds and an overestimate of the dynamic load.

Flute Index Flute index or spacing is defined as the variation from the desired angle between adjacent or nonadjacent tooth faces measured in a plane of rotation. AGMA defines and provides tolerance for adjacent and nonadjacent flute spacing errors. In addition, DIN and ISO standards provide tolerances for individual flute variation (Fig. 1).

simplified equations for backlash and roll test center distance are derived. Unknown errors in measured tooth thickness are investigate. Master gear design is outlined, and an alternative to the master gear method is described. Defects in the test radius method are enumerated. Procedures for calculating backlash and for preventing significant errors in measurement are presented.

When designing hardened and ground spur gears to operate with minimum noise, what are the parameters to be considered? should tip and/or root relief be applied to both wheel and pinion or only to one member? When pinions are enlarged and he wheel reduced, should tip relief be applied? What are the effects on strength, wear and noise? For given ratios with enlarged pinions and reduced wheels, how can the gear set sized be checked or adjusted to ensure that the best combination has been achieved?

Can a gear profile generated by the hobbing method be an ideal involute? In strictly theoretical terms - no, but in practicality - yes. A gear profile generated by the hobbing method is an approximation of the involute curve. Let's review a classic example of an approximation.