How To Develop Gear Milling Technology in the Future?

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Preface

Technology and its products are often causal: a technology can be used to develop more efficient and intelligent products; conversely, these products can play an important role in promoting the development of the technology. This relationship can be seen in machining.

In the past few years, cutting-edge metal cutting technology has impressed people with the manufacturing capabilities of multi-task machine tools and machining centers. At the same time, this advancement in the machine tool industry is also significantly changing metal cutting tool technology. Advanced multi-function machine tools are expanding the range of machining. The cutting process developed for it is designed to maximize the ability to complete machining in one clamping and open up a new way for more precise and efficient production. Gear milling and spline milling are one of the machining applications suitable for this new type of machine tool.

Traditionally, machining gears and splined keyways is a complex process, covering milling, chamfering, grinding and so on. In mass production, the mainstream processing methods are gear hobbing, gear shaving, gear grinding and other processes completed on a specific machine tool. The development of technology has not only changed the restriction of cutting hardness on machining, but also greatly improved the machining accuracy; thereby reducing the gear grinding allowance and reducing the amount of grinding. Modern multifunctional machine tools can meet the needs of one-time clamping and production, and perform well in the processing of various gears.

New machine tools require matching cutting tools, so metal cutting tool manufacturers must take countermeasures. This is why manufacturers of general indexable tools are reconsidering the inclusion of gear milling cutters in their standard product series. The three-point plan formulated by the leaders of the tool industry when developing gear milling cutters fully reflects this trend: gear milling cutters that hold indexable inserts; interchangeable head milling cutters based on the T-SLOT concept; with Transformer end mills with interchangeable heads (MULTI-MASTER).

Indexable insert type gear milling cutter

MODUGEAR, the indexable gear milling cutter series, embodies the traditional design concept, and the cutter body is vertically mounted to clamp the LNET insert. The vertical clamping principle provides a highly rigid, extremely stable and durable tool structure, which can process gear tooth profiles or splined keyways very stably, reliably and with high precision. It is mainly used in the rough milling of involute gear tooth profile and gear with relatively low production accuracy, and the modulus range is 1-1.75.

Changeable head gear milling cutter

Compared with indexable gear milling cutters, interchangeable head milling cutters have two significant advantages: they can provide gear milling cutters with higher precision; and the design of gear milling cutters with smaller diameters and more teeth can be achieved. The interchangeable milling cutter head is installed on the standard cutter body (tool holder). The standard cutter body (tool holder) is not only suitable for gear milling cutter heads, but also for other types of cutter heads (such as milling square grooves and open grooves). ). This allows customers to improve the utilization efficiency of general-purpose tool holders, reduce tool inventory, and provide additional added value.

T-SLOT type: Connected to the standard T-SLOTSD-SP15 cylindrical shank toolholder through the T-SLOT series spline positioning slot replaceable solid carbide milling cutter head T-GEARSDD32-M…-SP15 series, The latter is transformed into a gear milling cutter with a diameter of 32mm. With the high-precision shape of the milling cutter teeth and the precise and reliable SP spline positioning groove connection between the tool holder and cutter head, the milling cutter can achieve efficient milling of the involute gear tooth profile with a modulus range of 1-2. Note: The above two types of milling cutters (indexable insert milling cutter and interchangeable cutter head milling cutter) are manufactured according to DIN3972II standard.

Transformer end mill type: Advanced tool manufacturers have introduced two types of interchangeable carbide heads with MULTI-MASTER connection threads for spline milling and gear machining. The representative of the first type is the MMSS cutter head, which is specially designed for milling involute spline shafts and conforms to DIN5480 and ANSIB92.1 standards. These cutter heads are suitable for the modulus range of 1, 1.25, 1.5…, 3 (DIN5480 standard), and are used to process splines with the number of teeth of 8, 10, 12…, 24 (ANSIB92.1 standard). The representative of the second type is the MMSG cutter head, which is used for milling spur gears, which meets the DIN3972 standard (modulus range of 1-1.75) and ANSIB6.1 standard (the number of teeth range is 15-24). The main application field of MULTI-MASTER cutter head is the efficient production of spline shafts and spur gears in small and medium batches, which are suitable for different industrial fields.

Conclusion

There are various types of gears, including various internal and external gears: spur gears, helical gears, bevel gears, hypoid gears and so on. The manufacture of these gears requires an industrial department that has professional equipment and tools, and is able to develop new ways, fully control, and maintain dynamic updates. The introduction of multi-task machine tools to replace special machine tools for gear milling undoubtedly represents a new challenge in this field; and general-purpose tool manufacturers must be prepared to deal with this major change.

How To Develop Gear Milling Technology in the Future?