SIMULATION OF INVOLUTE GEAR TOOTH PROFILE SHAPING

Abstract

The involute is the most common shape of the gear tooth profile due to a number of its advantages compared to other profiles used in practice. The main advantages are the same type of tool for making both meshed gears, simple geometry of the tool, simple control and measuring of the shape and dimensions of the teeth, as well as that the gear meshing is not sensitive to varying gears' centre distance. Involute gears made with the same cutting tool - toothed rack can mesh correctly, regardless of the number of teeth. This fact, as well as the simple shape of the blade (a straight line), contributed to the establishment of the toothed rack as the basic tool for making involute teeth. In engineering education in the field of machine design and machine elements, it is still important to consider in detail the theory of gear pairs. Students learn about the geometry of gears, the kinematics of gear meshing, the strength, calculation of load carrying capacity, service life and reliability of gear pairs in various applications. Regardless of modern information technologies, modelling and computer simulations, the classic, traditional way of learning (or possibly hybrid, as a combination of conventional and modern approaches) is still the most prevalent in teaching. At the same time, laboratory exercises are of essential importance. The existing design of the laboratory educational device for simulating the generation of gearing using a toothed rack is presented in this paper. Then its design was modelled in the SolidWorks program and an improved variant solution is suggested. Also, a simulation of the involute teeth shaping was performed using AutoCAD.