Abstract
A CNC form gear-grinding machine with a truing device and an automatic tool changer (ATC) was developed. This grinding machine has six controlled axes including three linear axes and three rotary axes. The main axes are controlled by full closed loops to offer high accuracy. The work index head is driven by the helical gear pairs in pre-loaded meshing. A grinding wheel can be trued into an arbitrary profile on the machine and set in an arbitrary angle to the work axis. For this reason, the grinding machine can finish worms, hobs and pinion cutters in addition to spur and helical gears with a three-dimensionally (3-D) modified tooth surface. Also, the grinding machine has the ATC with six storage rooms for grinding wheels. Therefore, it can finish the work that needs combined machining including cylindrical grinding, thread grinding, etc. at one machining setup. In this paper, the structure and characteristics of the developed grinding machine and its support software based on the element removal method are introduced and the results of finishing tests of various types of works are shown.
