Shave grinding (power honing) is a new technology for the hard finishing of gears. The technology is a new approach with high potential because it is free from thermal influence on the subsurface and produces a favourable surface texture. The research work included modelling the shave-grinding process allowing design of a suitable test bench. For the visualization of the shave grinding process the software VIRTUAL-NC from DENEB ROBOTICS has been used. The visualization could be enhanced easily to include the machine attachments.
The following achievements resulted from the work:
constraint model of parameters for shave-grinding process;
test bench for new shave-grinding ring specifications;
recommendations on shave-grinding tool performance for commonly used tool specifications;
improvement of existing shave-grinding tool specification and development of new specification;
graphic visualization of shave-grinding process;
laboratory set up for visual inspection of helical gear wheels.
As consequence of the improvements the shave-grinding process can be conducted in a more stable way. This leads to shorter cycle times and tool cost. The economic advantage can be estimated to 20-30% of the cost of the operation. Gears machined under above mentioned conditions do have a very favourable noise behaviour compared to gears machined with any other known finishing method. This shows that shave grinding today can be considered as a technology which gives, as far as gear noise is considered, results at a very reasonable cost level that can not be achieved with any other process. New environmental laws require a new generation of engines, especially in the truck industry, with a considerably reduced noise level.