Gear Grinder Aims For Accuracy

The Smart GTG2 is engineered for one-off or batch production of helical, spur and worm gears in sizes as high as 3500 mm in diameter and 160 mm gear face width.   The gear grinding center incorporates onboard features such as automatic coordinate adjustment; in-cycle wheel dressing; integrated profile management; and CMM to accomplish high precision work.

The company’s customized machining method has been developed to compensate for helical twist, a condition that occurs when helical gears are “lead crowned” to improve meshing and reduce noise. Lead crowning varies the amount of material removed from the flank of the tooth across the face width by causing the tool motion to deviate from a true helix. In form grinding, this causes the profile of the tooth flank to vary across the face. In other applications this would not represent cause for concern, but in high precision applications, it affects gear wheel performance by concentrating loads on certain areas of the teeth during meshing.

According to the company, the CNC-controlled machine remedies this problem by calculating additional motions of the grinding wheel, and then controlling them during the grinding operation by using software.

The machine comes equipped with the company’s HTG8, an eight-axis CNC with features such as a touchscreen interface and an integrated profile management system.