Gear manufacturingGears are used extensively for transmission of power.

They find application in:- automobiles ,

gear boxes oil engines, machine tools, industrial machinery, agriculture machinery, gear motors
etc. To meet the power requirements the gears should have :- robust construction, reliable
performance, high efficiency, economy and long life. The gear drive should be free from noise,
chatter and should ensure high loading carying capacity at constant vel. Ratio.

Classification of gear production method:1. Casting:

Gears can be produce by various casting processes. Sand casting is economical and can take up
large size and module, but gears have rough surfaces and are inaccurate dimensionally. These
gears are used in machinery where operating speed is low and where noise and accuracy of
motion can be tolerated. Example. Farm machinery and some hand operating devices. Sand
casting is suitable for one- off or small batches. Large quantities of small gears are made by die
casting. These gears are fairly accurate and need little finish after casting the gears are annealed
or normalized to removes cooling stress. They may then be heat treated to provide the needed
properties.
2 Forming method:- roll forming , extension
Roll forming:in roll forming of gears, the gear blank is mounted on a shaft and is pressed against hardened
steel rolling dies. The rolls are fed inward gradually during several revolution which produce the
gear teeth from the solid. The forming rolls are very accurately made and the roll formed gear
teeth have usually excellent accuracy. The machinery are very expensive and so the method is
suitable only for mass production.
Extension:- small sized gears can also made by extension process their is saving in machinery
and material time. The method can produce any type of tooth form any suitable for high volume
prodution. Gears produce by extrusion find application in watches ,clocks ,type writers etc.

i)

Metal removal:- in this method the metal is removed from the gear blanks to produce the

gears. There are two methods :i)

Profiling and form cutter method:- in this method , the spaces betwwen the teeth are

cut by means of cutter confirming to the gear tooth form. This method necessitates the use of
special cutter for each applicationand so is not very suitable for large volume prodution. The
varies methods under this category are
1)
Gear cutting on milling machine with end milling cutter
2)
Gear cutting in planer or shapper with single point form tool
3)
Cutting external or internal teeth with form cutter in broaching machine.
4)
Gear cutting with form tools blade by share speed process
ii)
Gear generation process:this process is based on the principle that any two involute gears, or any gear and a rack of same
module will mesh together properly. If one of the geara is made into a cutter by proper sharpning
an it mashes with the gear blank, then the teeth on the blank are developed or generated by the
relative rolling motion of the cutter and the blank. This process in which the cutter is similar to a
mating pinion or a rack is called gear shaping. If the generated tool is threaded and gashed, it is
called a hob and the process is called gear hobing
Gear hobing:Hobing is a process of generating gear teeth by means of rotating cutter called a hob. A hob
resembles a worm, with gashes made parallel to its axes , to provide cutting edges. Releif is
provided behind each of helicaly arranged cutting faces for clearance. Gear hobbing is continous
cutting operation. The hob and the gear blank are connected by the means of proper changes
gears. To start cutting a thread, the hob is made to clear the blank. It is then moved in ward to
obtain the required tooth depth. After the tool depth is reached, the hob is fed in a direction
parallel with the axes of rotation of the gear. As the gear blank rotates, the teeth are generated.
To cut spur or helical gears, the hob is set in relation to the axes of the gear blank, so that the
threads of hob facing the gear are directed along the axes of tooth spaces for cutting spur gears
and at the helix angle of the teeth while cutting helical gears.
Types of hobbing:depending upon the direction of feed of the hob the gear hobing may be classified as:1)
Axial hobbing
2)
Radial hobbing
3)
Tagential hobbing

(i)

Axial hobbing- in this type,fistly the gear blank is brought towards the hob toget the
desired tooth depth the table slide is then clamped.after that the hob,while rotating
moves along the face of the blank to complete the job.axial hobbing which is used to
cut spur and helical gears can be climb hobbing or conventional hobbing.

(ii)

Radial Hobbing-in this type, the feed of the hob is radial towards the center of
blanks.radial infeed stops when the full depth of the cut is reached.

(iii)

Tangential Hobbing- in this method the hob is set at the start of cutting to the full
tooth depth and is then fed in to the gear blank by an axial feed motion. This method
is generally used for generating worm wheels.

Advantages of gear hobbing

i)

the method is versatile and can generate spur,helical,worm and worm wheels.

ii)

since gear hobbing is a continous process,it is rapid,economical and highly

productive.
the method produce accurate gears and is suitable for medium and large

iii)

batchproduction.
iv)

the cutter is universal,because it can cut all gears of the same module,rrespective of
number of teeth on the gear.

Disadvantages
i)

Gear hobbing can not generate internal gears.

ii)

enough space has to be there in competent configuration for hob appoach.

Application

The gear produced by gear hobbing are used in automobiles,machine tools,various

instruments,clocks etc.
Gear shapers
In gear shapers, the cutter reciprocates rapidly the teeth are cut by the reciprocating motion of
the cutter an because of this these machines are called gear shapers.the cutter can either be a
rack-type cutter or a rotary pinion type cutter.the main drawback of rack type cutter is that once
the length of the rake is covered by the gear blank the cutting process is interrupted to index the
blank back to starting point.in the case of rotating pinion type cutter such an indexing is not
requred,therefore this type is more productive and so common.
Principle of geaer shaper
The cutter is pinion shaped with a clearance on the tooth face. The gear blank mounted on a
vertical spindle and the cutter on the end of a second,vertical,reciprocating spindle cutting takes
place either on the downward stroke or on the upward stroke of thecutter.during each return
stroke either the table with the blank is with drawn from the cutter or the cutter is with drawn
from the blank.its purpose is to prevent rubbing and resulting wear of the cutting e3dges of the
cutter and damage to the tooth face of the gear being cut.to start cutting a gear,the tool is fed in
to the gear blank before each cutting stroke.when a required depth is reached the inward feeds
stops and the cutter and blank slowly start rotating as if they were in mesh.the gear is cut in one
complete rotation of the blank.
Advantages
i)

one cutter can be used for cutting all spur gears of the same module,irrespective of no
of teeth on the gear.

ii)

it can cut teeth,up close to a shoulder with only a slight clearance recess.

iii)

because the cutting stroke can be adjusted gear shapes are particularly suitable for
cutting cluster gears.

iv)

the method is versatile and can cut spur,helical,cluster,racks,splines,pawls and many

others.

v) the cutter has a generated profile which is more accrate in shape than some cutters,so the
gears produced are accurate.
vi)
the method is suitable for medium and large batch production.
Limitations
i)
The cutting action is reciprocating,and the cutting takes place only during one help of
ii)

the stroke,so only about half the machine time is spent in metal removal.
separate helical guide is requred for cutting helical gear of particular helix angle in a
particular direction.

Gear finishing methods

For the gears to operate efficiently and have satisfactory life the tooth profile must be very
accurate and the teeth should be hard and smooth.Gear made by cold rolling method may not
need further finishing but gears made by others methods often need further finishing operation
.The various finishing operation are described below.
1.
Gear shaving is the most common method for gear finishing. In this method very hard
gear is used to remove fine chips from the gear tooth.the shaving cutter can be rotary type or rack
type. In rotary shaving the cutter and the gear are run in mash. As they rotate the gear is traversed
longitudinally across shaving cutter. In rack shaving the cutter is in the form of the rack. During
the operation the gear is rolled in mesh with the cutter.the cutter is resiprocated and at the end of
each stock is fed into the gear.
2.
Gear burnishing : this is not a common method of gear finishing. In this method the gear
is rolled under pressure with three hardent, accurately formed, burnishing gears. This is cold
working process. In which
Any high points on the tooth surface are plastically deformed to get accurate and finished tooth
profile.
3.
Gear grinding: is the most accurate method of gear finishing. The operation can either by
form grinding or generation grinding in form grinding the wheel is dressed to the form an
involute and is similar to the form cutter used on a milling machine. The cutter is plunged into a
tooth space of the gear the gear is completely finished by indexing after each tooth has been
finished by the grinding wheel in the generating type the gear is rooled past the revolving wheel
and the finishing is done by the flat face of the wheel. The wheel is wide enough to cover the
entire tooth width, so that it doesnot have to be traversed parallel to the axis of the gear. The
drawbacks of the methods are low production capacity, grinding wheels are expensive and need
skilled labour for operation

4.

Lapping: the lapping process only corrects minute heat treatment distortion errors in

hardent gear the gear is to be finished is run in mesh with the gear shaped lapping tool or another
mating gear. An obrasive lapping compound in between them. Only the tooth contact is improved
by this method
5.
Honing: it is employed mainly to removed burrse and nicks and thus for improving the
surface finish in this method the honing tool made of a plastic material with obrasive material
embeded in it is run in mesh at crosed axis, with the gear to be finished. The gear is drive in at
high speed by the tool and is also resiprocated across the tool. During the cycle, the gear is run in
both direction