2019 年 85 巻 10 号 p. 873-878
In this study a new method of gear cutting is proposed. The principle of involute gear generation is as follows: the rack cutter moves in a reciprocatory manner and feeds to the tangential direction of the gear. In the proposed method, a taper endmill is used as the cutter, and the rotating cutter feeds in both the axial and tangential directions of the work gear. By using only a taper endmill, the machining of gears with various specifications including the module, number of teeth, pressure angle, and addendum modification coefficient can be realized. The commonly used gear-cutting method is that of hobbing or gear shaping. In these methods, dedicated tools such as a hob or pinion cutter are used; with them, only gears with a predetermined module and pressure angle are machined. In other words, when gears with different modules or pressure angles are machined, changing the tool is necessary. A formed tool is used as a gear-cutting method that employs an end mill. However, this tool can only machine a predetermined module, pressure angle, and number of teeth. The most important feature of the proposed gear-cutting method is that no restrictions are placed on the gear specifications. In this study, the geometric mechanism of an involute gear cutting using a taper end mill is described. An example of actual machining with a 5-axis machining center or a general-purpose milling machine is also shown, and the utility of the new method is discussed.
